


Devil With A Cause

by DarkxKnightxFiremoon



Series: The Dante Chronicles [1]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Anger, Blood and Violence, Brotherly Love, Comfort Sex, Consensual Underage Sex, Dante and Lady love, Dante's feelings for Eva, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Feels, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Control, Love in darkness, Matter of Life and Death, Mother-Son Relationship, Murder, Post-Apocalypse, Slice of Life, Soft Vergil (Devil May Cry), Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Top Dante (Devil May Cry), True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-01-23 13:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21320599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkxKnightxFiremoon/pseuds/DarkxKnightxFiremoon
Summary: Revenge is a drug, if anything. Dante was intoxicated on it's brilliant high, but he couldn't see the most nefarious trap waiting for him. Lady didn't see it coming either . . .(Repost)
Relationships: Dante & Lady (Devil May Cry), Dante/Lady (Devil May Cry)
Series: The Dante Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537048
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23





	1. Prologue: Creeping Death

**Author's Note:**

> I'm DevotionMoonxXx, I own this story and I'll start updating it here.  
Hope you like it :)  
This story is going to be dark in certain things.

The darkness came suddenly, but not silently.

It was night time, and the simple comfort of that star-lit skyline was at once overcome and shrouded by something much more dispiriting.

An ardent wave of _something_ overcame the city, flooding it and then spreading out infinitely across the world, flying across the planet itself.

It was suffocating, dimming the street lamps and clouding over the houses as the lights within began to flicker. All over the city, the people were roused by the sound of their crying children.  
All were frightened by the sudden darkness and somewhere, out in the deep night, high-pitched, hysterical laughter echoed through the streets. And beneath their beds something croaked.  
For others it was from within their closets, hungering growls longing for them. It was just a simple waiting game for now.

The cry of this delirious banshee outside spread through the city, seeping into the dreams of even the heavier sleepers and bringing them sharply into reality.

The man had expected to awaken to a nightmare, a stereotypical haunted house moment, where lightning crashed outside his window and a witch darted across the moon.  
But the sight of a black, moonless sky was far more disturbing than anything his imagination could have conjured, and he stared up, out of his window,

His heart pounding faster and faster, blindness overcame him.

"Something's wrong . . ." He whispered.

It was as though the pure fact of an all-dark sky awakened some deep-seated fear, he couldn't understand why.

The window beside his bed overlooked a street that was completely barren.

Then the laughter returned to his ear, ripping through all that was good and holy in the world.

He pulled his fruitless gaze from the window, leaping up to look frantically around his bedroom.

After a few moments, he shook himself. Those sounds were just in his head, the echoes of a bad dream. That was it. And so he sat on his bedside briefly, holding his hand over his pounding heart.  
If he got back into bed and shut his eyes, he'd wake up in the morning and everything would be like usual. Taking a deep breath, he laid back over his bed and rested his head down on the pillow.

He was just pulling the covers back when a flash of red flickered out of the corner of his eye. He shot upright in bed instantly. Darkness. Only darkness.

Dante shook his head one last time as he sank back and allowed sleep to overtake him, and yet he couldn't shake the feeling this was the wrong time to be lazy.

* * *

. . .

* * *

On the edge of the ocean, construction workers in bright coats gathered around the dig-site, their work abandoned since the brief but violent quake earlier.

A chill rose through the air, something just ever-so-slightly corrupting, pushing past their skin gently, almost inviting.

They stared into the sky above the distant trees, to a bright red glow coming from somewhere out at sea and were so mesmerized by it, so they failed to see the trucks pull up behind them.  
The engines died and several people jumped out: various different crisis responders and a few ragtag scientific men. At once, they all approached the edge of the port's yellow border.

It was such a warm glow, clearly some kind of phenomenon, and while helicopters flew on by and the men and women in their trucks geared up prepared vessels to sail on out.

It had been reported as a potential fire on an oil rig, there _was_ at least one off the coast, roughly about as far as the light seemed.

Immediately, the lead scientist began conversing with his workers, observing the glow as they set up an odd mechanism that looked cylindrical.

It seemed to have various wires, all tangled but plugged in to where they needed to be at least. On the front was a metal panel mount where they rigged a monitor.

The device began displaying readings of some kind.

"That can't be a fire." One of them said.

"It's too deeply red to be a blaze, but it's also too bright to be any kind of aquatic activity." Replied another scientist.

The other turned to him, "What do you think, Arthur?"

Professor Hawkins lifted his hand to his creased forehead as he fiddled about with the knobs on the space-age contraption, occasionally rearing up to catch a glimpse of that light.  
Within the man's watery eyes, his colleague thought he could see a dark familiarity. Did Hawkins know anything he wasn't sharing? What kind of moral implications would it spurn?

Even worse was the thought that crossed his mind next: What if the professor had somehow had a hand in the creation of the anomaly?

No, that was absurd . . . Right?

"I can't be sure." He lowered his hand and shook his head hopelessly, unsure of himself, so he asked an approaching construction worker, "You said on the radio that you heard screaming?"

"Yeah, that's right," The laborer replied. "About twenty-five minutes ago, not long after the quake. It stopped, but we've contacted the coast guard to make sure no one's playing a joke out there."

"If there _was_ someone out there, that might explain how that fire started. Might've had crashed into the rig and set a few other things off." The worker's colleague chimed in.

Hawkins sighed.

"That, gentlemen, is not a fire. It is currently an anomalous light source, we're here to study it before it vanishes, before _they_ reach it." The man said, motioning to the departing boats.

"What does that mean?" The worker asked him.

"It might be a gas cloud, we don't know. If it registers a high radiation count or abnormal levels of electromagnetic interference, we can rule out that theory.  
I've seen something similar before, but it wasn't anything too serious . . . Though I am curious to find out what this light originates from." He turned back to his colleagues.

"What does it say?"

"There's . . . a high level of gamma rays!" The man said reading the panel as it lit up with an error.

"What?" Hawkins said, almost outraged, he'd been wrong on all accounts . . . interesting. "That's impossible. At this close of a range at that high of a concentration!? We should be dead."

"Wh-Why aren't we?" The technician said, looking out at that crimson glow.

Suddenly, a spot of darkness opened up within the massive light, and from it spat forth a blinding flash. When it ceased mere seconds later, a small girl lay crouched before them all.  
She couldn't have been older than ten, and her hair was pure ebony, as dark and angular as a Raven's beak. She sat there on her feet, kneeling, shivering, and tears dripped to the ground.

They froze on contact.

* * *

. . .

* * *

It was just one of those days . . . even a feather could fall without drifting one way or the other.  
The grass was straight and silent, the leaves stayed still, as if they had were painted there.  
Should a person be able to hear the beating of a birds' wings - that would have been the only breeze.

It was still, utterly still.

Dante sat inside his shop, the industrialized-gothic feel of it being his only vague source of comfort today. He held both his hands together and rested his chin on his knuckles.  
He couldn't concentrate, not even enough to read the magazine that came for him in the post. Something had changed between yesterday and today, a flatness consumed all motion.

There was this rotten malaise to everything, as though it were the hottest day of summer, yet he knew it was winter.

Swords and severed demon limbs adorned the walls, all gleefully taken from their owners, and the man's red coat laid over the side of his brown leather couch to his right.

He looked around his office and really focused on the contents for the first time in a long while, where he saw the something he hadn't seen in a long while.  
It was the only source of energy in the room, and once he noticed it, it drew his view right in, and he couldn't focus on anything else.

The Force Edge hung in front of an old poster. He barely even remembered he had that thing. But that was just it, how could he forget? How could he forget a thing like that?

It crackled with electric energy, reacting to something somehow, but he hadn't ever seen it do that before.  
What was setting it off and why had he never realized it's presence still clung to his arsenal, unused?  
Perhaps it was worth using again after so long, he knew that he did grow tired of that same old Rebellion.

Where'd he put Rebellion anyway?

"I wonder-" Dante whispered as he laid back on his chair and lifted his legs up, but he felt uncomfortable. That was a first.

He sighed, "Well, another no-job day I suppose. Perfect."

The phone rang.

Lifting up his right heel crossed over his left leg, he brought it back down and bashed the surface of the table, not enough to do any structural damage.  
Concentrating the energy in his foot, the kinetic action sprung the handset off the base station and he extended a hand out to catch it.

The handset flew past his hand and he caught the wire instead.

"God damn it- Come here!" He said frustrated, fiddling about with the handset as it dangled from his reach.

Trying to remain seated with his legs up initially, he eventually gave up and placed his legs back on the floor, awkwardly fumbling with the receiver as he heard a voice say 'hello?'

Finally, he put the handset to his ear, "Yeah?"

"Hello . . . Is this Devil May Cry inc.?"

"You don't need to say inc-_. . ._ But yes, this is Devil May Cry. What's up?"

"Isn't there a password or something?"

Dante stared blankly at the wall for a moment, "Oh yeah."

"Uh, well, I have it here on file, it says . . . Uhh . . . 'Vergil-Blows.'"

"Hehe, yeah, that's the one. What can I do for ya?"

"I'm sorry for disturbing you mister Dante, my name is Arthur Hawkins. I'm roughly two minutes away from your shop and am bringing you a job."

"_You don't say?_" He remarked, sarcasm lazily basted all over it.

"One minute." Hawkins said.

Dante opened his eyes, "Look, you can hang up, you don't have to-" He stopped as the front door opened.

"That was quicker than one minute, old man." The hunter told him.

"Haah, I would prefer it if you refrained from such pet names. I have a job for you, sir." The professor replied.

"Don't call me sir. Now, waddya want?"

"I apologize, I don't mean to test your patience. But also, I didn't know where else to bring her."

The professor motioned to a figure standing outside and as it moved slightly, Dante finally recognized the form of a very small girl.  
She was wrapped in a heavy black coat and her face partially hidden by messy, ratty hair. Her stare was vacant, not at all emotional or kind.

"This is Lily," said Professor Hawkins, "And that's all I've managed to find out about her since she first appeared late last night. She doesn't talk very much."

"What?" Dante said, his tone suddenly more serious, "Where did you find her?"

For a moment he was dumbfounded, a bit alarmed by her frail state.

"The anomaly that appeared at sea yesterday, she seems to be connected with it. We haven't been able to determine her nature, though she isn't harmful to the touch.  
One of the only odd things about her is that her tears freeze the second they touch anything separate from herself. Apart from that, she's an ordinary child."

"Uh-huh. And you brought her _because_?" He asked.

"Ah, uh, well- It's a bit hard to say. no amount of scientific analysis has yielded any kind of information about her beyond her name, her outward appearance, and her freezing tears.  
She is, for all intents and purposes, an 'impossible' girl and so therefore must be treated as an object to study. We require your knowledge of the supernatural, Dante.  
You see, the university I work for is eager to take a more, shall we say, 'involved' approach to studying what we can't explain. I can tell you this: she came from the red light."

"Wait, what?"

"My employment? I'm a profes-"

"No not that, the 'red light'?" Dante interrupted him.

"Eh yes, the red light. It appeared at sea last night, did you not realize that when I said 'the anomaly'?" Hawkins replied.

"I heard you I just didn't care. So that red light was real . . . No." Frustrated, the hunter ran his fingers through his hair.

So, it really _wasn't_ something he should've ignored.

"I see, you have a connection with it? All the better." Arthur said, and the hunter looked back at him almost disturbed. The man continued his proposition, "Watch over her, for a couple of days."

"Seeing as it is an inconvenience for you, the university has permitted me a research grant of five thousand dollars to employ you for this task."

"Five thousand, eh? Pretty penny, what's the catch?" Dante asked.

"All we do is observe you and her, me and my team will be monitoring any strange occurrences during the time you interact with her, to see if she responds with someone similarly supernatural."

"What's that supposed to mean?" The devil hunter asked him.

"We've run every diagnostic possible and nothing has turned up repeated finds, so think of this as a 'control group', it's just an experiment to measure any changes in behavior or physiology.  
You have my word that we will do our best not to impede your day to day life. We only seek to understand her, it's as simple as that. Play with her, talk to her, engage her."

"All I gotta do is sit and talk to vegetable-kid here and I get five grand?"

"As simples as that." The professor repeated.

"Ah, alright. We have a deal, cash upfront."

Arthur smiled and dug through his coat till he found the checkbook, right in front of Dante he wrote out the amount to the full payment and not a cent below.  
Ripping out the paper from his check, he placed it on Dante's desk and shifted it forward towards the man. Every dollar's worth would be worth it to know.

The right side of Dante's lip twitched upwards as he picked his teeth with his tongue for food scraps.

"See you soon, Dante." Arthur winked and started heading back, "Would you be a dear and run a bath for her? She does need it."

And at that, he closed the door behind him. For a moment there was an awkward silence, the girl seems to be avoiding his eye directly.  
Awkwardly, he approached the girl, pausing only when she flinched and tried to back away, her green eyes wide with fear.

"Uh, are you a fan of food?"

No response.

"Okay, do you got any friends, any family? People-. . . people you mighta known? -No?" He asked in a jumbled thought process.

The girl stayed the same.

"Well . . . This is just perfect. Trapped in my shop with a deaf mute. Any chance you like coffee?" He added to what he knew would be silence, "Okay, well I'm gonna grab some."

The man got up and walked over to the counter to the right of his desk and began fixing himself some caffeine.  
Quite the day already, he knew something was wrong but he couldn't quite place it. Something was just different.  
The world just wasn't quite the way it was yesterday.

He stopped and tried to think of something, then it clicked.

"Yeah see you soon too, pal, I'm about to throw a little monkey wrench into your observation here." The man grumbled under his breath.

He went back to his desk and picked up the handset, dialing up the number of the one person he knew could help. A minute went by before he heard her voice.

"Hello?" She answered, almost stunned.

"Lady, babe, can i call you babe?" He said sarcastically, doing his best impersonation of an old 1950's film agent, "Ya need to come to my place, now."

He heard her take a hard breath in, then sigh, "Look, Dante, I know I said I was into to-"

"No-no-no-no-no, not calling about that, there's a little girl here." He cut her off.

"Wait what?"

"Some dude came by and dropped off a ten-year-old girl, offered me five thousand dollars to babysit her for a little while. You want in?"

"Slow down there, do you realize it's six-mother-fucking-thirty in the morning?" Lady replied, anger flaring.

"Yeah yeah, you can punch me in the face when you get here, just trust me on this, kay? I'll split the five thousand with you even. Twenty five hundred your way doesn't sound bad, huh?"

It took Lady quite the moment before she answered him.  
So many seconds rolled by as he heard her breathing hard.  
She was tired. He'd woken her up.

"Fine, five minutes: I'll be there."

* * *

**Thank you for reading everyone, please leave a review.**


	2. Where it all begins

. . .

A set of mismatched eyes opened to see a dull light-brown ceiling, since the arrangement of the waves and curls of the paint always looked like cracks from the lighting.

The same place that felt like a stranger. There wasn't any kind of longing to be here in her heart, it all felt empty, without meaning at all. It was just a place hold her belongings.  
The eyelids closed again as the owner shifted in her bed onto her right side, the feeling of warm volatile emotions burning her chest, she was left to feel enraged and damaged.  
A dream within had sparked a memory, a memory of past pain that wouldn't die.

She was off to drift out to sleep again, happy to burn away in the darkness of her mind when the loud ring of her work phone shot her eyes open once more, and a pulse of anger surged through her.

'Oh this better be good or someone's gonna die.'

Grumbling to herself, she sat up and let the blanket fall away from herself lazily, then she found the phone on the floor and flipped it open.

"Hello?"

"Lady, Babe, can I call you babe? Ya need to come to my place, now." She heard a typically sarcastic voice from the other line.

Dante, a halfbreed of devil and man, but of a kind heart, spoke to her so kindly. She'd met him ten years prior.  
They had a rough start, because of the fact she shot him in the head . . . twice. Not a particularly proud memory.

But she found something unexpected from him, a demon was crying for someone he loved. It defied logic, but she knew in her heart of hearts that it was true.

He was such a sensitive boy, always had been. She liked that about him, for all his faux-meathead-ed bluster, he was really just this lost man.  
It was a wonder he'd found a way out of those times, how he'd even become half the person he was now. Was it even worth it to him, all that personal growth?  
Probably not, he didn't seem to care much about anything at all, ever.

That's what sparked the odd friendship between the two, she still enjoyed that sense of freedom his presence seemed to instill in most people.

"Look, Dante, I know I said I was into to-"

"No-no-no-no-no, not calling about that, there's a little girl here." He cut her off.

Her mind was still dim and fractured, sleeping while awake. So there was a little girl. He didn't knock up some girl, did he? She supposed that'd be pretty typical of him . . . in a stupid way.  
Would he be a good dad? Not from what she'd seen, but it was always an interesting topic to theorize on. She didn't want to usually think about it, but it crossed her mind every once in a while.

"Wait what?" She asked.

"Some dude came by and dropped off a ten-year-old girl, offered me five thousand dollars to babysit her for a little while. You want in?"

Lady took a moment to sigh. It was a softly deflating grumble, as though the tension had lifted, yet it left her with a melancholic grace instead of a cool relief.  
He had to be kidding her, at this hour? She groaned and replied with an expletive-laced sentence that was somewhat warranted, and she reminded him of what time it was.

The man on the other end simply smirked.

"Yeah yeah, you can punch me in the face when you get here, just trust me on this, kay? I'll split the five thousand with you even. Twenty five hundred your way doesn't sound bad, huh?"

Lady took a moment to close her eyes and find some form of solace in this.

It seemed like there was no such thing as a vacation in her world. Still, sounds like good cash.  
She could at least appreciate the money when it was presented to her.

"Fine, five minutes: I'll be there." She replied simply and hung up on him.

She left her bed and went for the bathroom to freshen up. Strangely enough, the water was cold. In fact it was almost freezing, she could hear the pipes rattling as though it were winter.

'What's going on?' She thought to herself, this was quite bizarre, she knew it was long past winter by then.

She walked out of the small bathroom, and her eyes spotted the view from the window. Lady was living in crummy apartment complex, a very small space for her.  
Gotta get by somehow, it was either this or walk the earth endlessly. She preferred to spend her mortal life in at least some kind of shelter, though by her own hand.  
It was getting darker with each passing second, and a strange vibe filtered through the air that she couldn't quite understand. There were no clouds in the sky, and yet the light was diminishing.

"What the hell? . . ." She wondered. Lady looked down at her watch, and it said: 6:32 A.M, "It's morning right?"

Right now, the sun was supposed to be out and about as blindingly bright as possible, at least during this part of the year. Before her was a grey sky that threatened to rain.  
Quickly, she changed to her usual clothes and sprayed male cologne on herself as she made sure of her weapons. Off far away glowed an ominous red light. Something was seriously wrong here.

The moment she stepped out of her house, it seemed to her like it was dusk.

There were people wandering around like usual, but most of them were watching the sky and chatting among themselves about the strange phenomena.

An elderly woman waved at her from the unit across the hall. It was her new neighbor, just to the left of her chair up above.

"Hey, Lady!"

"Yo Mrs. K." She waved back and walked down. There was a few feet of distance between the two of them, as is common with a third floor residence and the ground.

"What do you think's wrong with the weather?" The old woman asked, "You don't think it's something by itself do you?"

Lady didn't smirk like usual, instead speaking to her neighbor a little uneasy.  
The air familiarly dense, almost as though the entire atmosphere had been shifted.  
It wasn't an alien feeling but she couldn't put her finger on why.

"Uh, i'm not sure, looks like it could be some kind of tropical storm overseas sending some stuff this way." Lady commented.

"The news last night, did you see it?" She asked.

Lady gave it some thought but didn't really recall anything. Last night she went to bed early, too tired to watch anything.

"Not really, what do you mean?"

The old man sighed and closed her eyes. "Some kind of red light appeared off the coast, it's just shining there and no one's gotten very close."

"Red light?" Lady tensed her shoulders back.

"A red light off across the water. It's deeply blood red and glows brightly from the sea, it's a bad omen." She paused to take her breath, "It reminds me of an old tale I remember from my mother."

Oh, well . . . that can't be good.

"Eh, what 'tale?'" Lady replied, unconsciously stroking a lock of her black hair.

The wind on her face felt cold, but it was so slow, chugging along like a heavy locomotive. Something was wrong, intrinsically.  
The earth felt course beneath her boots, the whole world had this bitter feeling of corrosion. That red light was poison.

"It was more like an old proverb, something to do with those old demon-legends. 'Darkness swallows the sky, and earth will be consumed with the dead, then the dark prince will come.'"

Damn.

That was a dark statement, and it unnerved the bounty hunter as she stood looking up at her neighbor's window. Lady pondered on the subject.

"Yeah . . . Well-uh, just- . . . Just take it easy, okay? Don't dwell on stuff like that." Lady said with a soft smile, "I got a friend who'll take care of it. He's kinda got a knack for stuff like this."

The woman's face seemed to brighten, but Lady herself couldn't smile, not when she knew so much. It felt familiar, this 'grimy' feeling.  
All those years ago, when she'd ascended the tower . . . the air inside of it, it felt the same way as the very space around her.

She heard the woman call to her as she turned to leave.

"Please, be careful." The woman's plea finally gave Lady the courage to smile.

She turned back towards her and shared a happy look.

"Thanks. Don't worry about me, I can take care of myself."

With that, the woman was on her way, decidedly taking up her motorcycle for the biker-look. It was a good day yesterday, she wondered where it'd gone wrong in the night.

. . .

Dante stomped his foot on the step of the stone stairs, rushing up as fast as possible while taking care not to get his ankle caught in the dying cracks.  
Stepping over, he bounded up the staircase without any care. Reaching the top, he came to an open field at the peak, a wide open parkland with looming willow trees.  
He stopped and stared around. Looking back down the steps, they disappeared and he saw the ground close up behind him, leaving sealed steps that lead into the dirt.  
The man looked around himself and the park was wide open and filled with a roaring wind that shouted in his ears the name of the dark lord.

'Dominus'

"Dominus . . ." He told himself sternly. "What the hell does that mean? Is that a name?" He said louder, shivering when his voice echoed throughout the empty lands.

Within the growth of the green grass, sprouted a hallway that looked dingy and unused for years, tiles smothering the vegetation beneath.  
He walked across the dusty blackened floor to the first room. On his right, he opened the door, stepping cautiously into a destroyed bedroom.

Right at the corner, he can see the closet. There was a voice still speaking to him.

'You know we shouldn't be doing this.'

'Heh, you think I care? I don't see what we're doing as taboo.'

"Nice memories." Dante said to himself as he heard the voices playing back in his ear, a male and a female.

One as himself, the other a woman . . . someone close to him. She was older, and he thought she was just another human. Ha.  
Little did he know what she really was, what she would then use him to do. This house, the half-burned room . . . wasn't the first time enough?

Were the first four nights of hell enough punishment? Perhaps he had to suffer more.

What could he possibly have done to deserve going back into this house?

"Even in my dreams, I can't get out. I'll never get out." He gripped his right wrist tightly to stop his gun from twitching.

Next through the closet he saw a door at the back. Opening it, he emerged inside a bathroom, but not one near this previous room.  
The door shut itself behind him, then faded from existence. All that was left was a vacant wall of a pallid green shade.  
It was all old, decrepit. This place was falling apart, no one had lived within it's confines for years on end, he knew that much.

His pale, lifeless face looked back at him in the mirror and his entire body suddenly trembled, yet he could not feel it. Only the reflection was convulsing as it's eye's grew large.

It's voice shrilled upward as it began to tear at it's own face. The reflection's finger nails grew outward and jagged, becoming perfect tools for self-mutilation.  
The more it tore, the more alien it became. The man stepped backward from his heinous reflection, watching as it carved valley's into it's cheeks  
It dug and dug beneath the various layers of flesh, maintaining a sickening groove to it's cadaverous approach. Then, once all semblance of humanity had been removed, it stopped.  
A devil's face, found beneath the human visage, stared into his soul, and it burned him. Dante grabbed his chest as he staggered back toward the wall in this doorless room.

Steadily, strands of hay grew from his fingers, and a crown of thorns abruptly wrapped themselves across the flesh of his forehead, spiking themselves in.

The man stood with his back to the wall and he pointed the gun towards the mirror. The sights set on the twisted smiling figure, he shot.  
Shattering on impact, the glass fractured outward and ran themselves through him as he felt the force of gravity move sideways and pull back down through the broken mirror.  
Falling downward through the hall-like chasm behind the surface, his whole mid nearly tore in half as he plummeted and plummeted, the temperature rising.

Finally, he crashed through a burnt wood roof, and landed in his old backyard. His body broke through the glass table.

Standing up from the mess, he felt drained and damaged, then looked down as he saw he was suddenly unharmed.  
A heightened awareness was a double-edged sword for him, the entire area was dead quiet. He stood and saw the inside of the house.

There was her couch. Still presentable, surprisingly.

He knew what was next, like in all his other dreams when he'd come here. Next, he would find her scarf.

His fears had been realized. Resting on the ground in front of him was a light red garment. The neckerchief.

He kneeled down to pick it up. As he regained his footing he heard her speak again.

'Ah-hahaha, you always know what I like.'

'You make it easy.' His young voice replied

More clearly, he noticed her wide bloodshot eyes, materializing in the midst of the room. What an odd sight. Steadily, blood pumped out through where there should have been a head to receive it.  
Then, the liquid fell and sloshed around in an invisible container, steadily filling out what became veins and arteries, then returning flesh and muscles, before the rest then also came.  
A terribly torn body; but he never had the heart to truly focus on the reflection, the one from his young-adulthood was enough trauma, he worked hard to almost erase it from his memory.

Something banged painfully against Dante's head as he turned his head over and he grunted as the sharp pain surged throughout his cranium.

The magazine fell to the ground.

It was dark, too dark to see anything, but after a few moments, he remembered he was on the couch sleeping and what he had just collided with was most likely the coffee table.

Rubbing his head, he climbed to his knees off the floor, as he'd rolled over and fallen off. Another thought occurred to him, when had he fallen asleep?  
Slightly, he opened his eyes and out of the corner, he saw the child standing still, watching him with those beady viridescent eyes like an owl.

"Jeez kid, you give everybody heart attacks like that?" Dante said monotone.

The small girl stayed silent, staring at him emotionless.

"Kid, you gotta talk around here or it's gonna get uncomfortable real quick." The hunter said as he sat up.

He heard the front door fling open and jingle, and someone walk inside.

"Dante." Lady said as she slung off her bazooka by the entrance then closed the front door behind her.

"Yo." He replied groggily.

"You alright?"

"Hm? Oh yeah, just had a rough dream." He said.

"Rough, eh? Sounds . . . interesting" She told him with a smirk.

"Ah no, not in that way unfortunately. What's up?"

"Just came by for the money really, how's this gonna work?" She said, looking at the girl, "What's your name?"

"You won't get much outta her, but somehow the doc got her to tell him her name's Lily." The devil hunter replied for the little girl, who acknowledged Lady's presence only briefly.

She just went back to looking at Dante and seemed increasingly fixated on him. Her stare wasn't creeping, nor was it stabbing, it was just vacant.  
Grumbling past his pain and the dark room, he made his way towards the attractive figure of Lady and promptly patted her on the shoulder.

"Thanks for showin' up though. Things've gotten a little strange around here." He mumbled.

"Gotcha." She said as she touched his hand and pushed it away, "Anything else going on?"

"Uh, nah, just this. I think the doc and his cronies'll be along soon though."

That shook him out of his pain-induced stupor, suddenly all buzzers started firing in his head again, and the world came alive . . . only, it didn't.  
Something was very, very wrong, the entire world felt crooked and jumbled out of sorts. What was going on? The entirety of these last two days were largely dragging.  
It was as though the entire world was covered in this smoky haze that made life miserable all of a sudden, the ground felt wrong, the air was unfit to breathe.  
Worst of all, his headache had not even ceased.

He rubbed his forehead, thankfully the inside of his shop was dark and terribly chilled. He hated the heat if he was being honest, but he didn't care most times.

"I think they're here." The man said as he walked on past the little girl ignoring her odd twitching.

She couldn't keep still, this little girl. She was so odd, the entirety of her natural essence felt human from the get-go, but something wasn't quite right.  
The darkness outside, or whatever the hell it was, was unnaturally still, but he could hear the shouts and sounds of people talking in the street.  
Were they people? They better god damn well be, he despised anything that didn't go right for himself. It'd just be the biggest pain if something went wrong right now.

But nope, thankfully, it was just the sounds of the 'good doctor' and his team.

"What the hell is this?" Dante muttered and opened the front door. The red mercenary cringed as they made their way towards him, right alongside them two armed men.

"Since when do university doctors employ mercenaries?" Dante smirked, "Great day, ain't it?"

Arther laughed awkwardly. He was not a graceful man by any means, and his ego had arrived about an hour before he had. There wasn't any kind of pleasure in this.  
Dante was starting to regret saying yes, perhaps the simple fact he would have to put up with this invasion of privacy was an indicator of Dante's poor judgement at times.  
Hatred wasn't even a word to describe the amount of dislike he felt toward the man. Then again, twenty-five hundred dollars is twenty-five hundred dollars.

The doctor introduced his team

"These are the boys. They're going to be setting up shop and observing your interactions." The scientist said.

Dante rolled his eyes, "Uh-huh, that's great. Let's just get this over with."

The man led by example and didn't care if they followed, though they did, barging into his cramped office with reckless abandon, though they still kept their distance from the little girl.  
A perimeter was established first and foremost, then came the heavy electronic equipment, unloaded from the vans parked outside on the street.  
Raising themselves as much as possible, they were mindful of pre-existing furniture to only a certain extent, moving things around and operating their machinery without care.

They saw the Lady standing there, weirded out, arms folded at her chest.

"Who's this?" Hawkins asked the man.

"This? That's a woman." Dante said flatly.

There was a long look of exasperation on the doctor's face.

"Questions are welcome, I can tell you what their function is in society and what it is that they do biologically. No, they don't all look like she does." The man replied to him.

Arthur tried to protest this, "Ehm, the experiment was just meant to document-"

"Well, she's here. You do it or you don't. Do you want your data or not?" Dante told him, maintaining that same monotone.

"I don't got anything better to do." Lady commented.

The rotten professor was quite displeased but he upheld this new aberration to the punk's demanding rhetoric, as overcomplicated this situation was fast becoming now.  
Dante didn't like anyone really, he could just pretend to get along with people. It was a pretty good racket, just good enough to get people to think he was really sociable.  
So, they went about to work as the odd standoff continued until the professor relented and allowed the third variable into the experiment.

"Are we good?" Asked Hawkins to one of his interns.

"We're all set."

"Alrighty then," The man said, turning back toward Dante as he mentioned to the man, "We're up and good to go, you may begin the interactions."

"Uh, sure, what should we do then?" The man turned and said.

"Try to talk with her, ask her personal questions."

"What, like a shrink?" Dante replied.

The little girl flinched and backtracked slightly at the sight of them all, tears threatened to roll down the sides of her face.  
She was such a frail little thing, looking very bitter and cold, this despite the heavy blankets with which she was covered.

Lady noticed the girl's sullen face and couldn't help but feel bad. She looked so frail and thin, had she been starving? Tentatively, she approached the girl.

There was fear on her breath, every movement driven by instinct, innate reactions to her discordant environment. Today just wasn't getting any easier.

Thunder ripped through the silence abruptly, and it soon became clear that the skies had abruptly shifted, though no one could see outside.  
But Lady smiled and held out her hand to the girl, her kindness an odd look as she'd often been such a sour one, saying to Lily, "It's okay. I won't hurt you."

"Don't." She heard a disturbingly raspy, soft voice tell her.

Lady almost jolted out of place as she froze, wondering who this little girl was.  
Why was she here, where did she come from?  
Hesitating, the little girl slowly reached for her hand and touched Lady's skin.  
The touch was pure ice, and the bounty hunter felt an odd prickling in the base of her neck.

"Be kind." Lily stated.

The first words spoken, so simple yet commanding.

The girl's feature seems to relax a bit into emotionlessness. Those bitter eyes faded to simple emptiness. Still, it was better than having her look like she'd rip your heart out.  
All those present noted a sizable atmospheric shift occur outside simultaneously. The light that crept in dulled significantly, as though time were reversing itself.  
Barometric pressure was falling fast, and the energy measured across the room shifted as well, it's electromagnetic pulse subtly affected by the little girl's chilling words.

Arthur watched the girl intently, looking for any small change in behavior.

Dante had gone to his desk and laid back in his chair, not truly caring about the situation.

"Interesting . . . it seems completely relaxed with you." The lead researcher said.

Lady grimaced and turned to face him. "Do me the courtesy of actually treating it like a female child while I'm here please."

"I apologize, but it's scientific procedure to treat all unidentified organisms as special objects." Hawkins replied, staring at the camera as it recorded, "We seek to understand more about the anomaly."

"Anomaly?" She said, then realized, "You mean that red light offshore?"

"The object emerged from it's confines unharmed across an impossible distance, we seek to understand more about the anomaly. Had it only been Dante, we would not be involved verbally." One replied.

Dante gave a wry smile, and looked at Lady, saying, "Sorry."

She shook her head and felt the little girl's hand relax in hers. A strong burst of wind hit the front doors, which had been bolted shut by the researchers.  
The armed guards stood proudly, ignoring the practically everything but the small 'object' in the center of the room. Instantly, the office had become a lab.

Dante stood up and walked around his desk to return to the small child. At first, she moved backwards, appearing to be put off by his presence.

"Come on kid, how about ya flash a smile for me?" He said with a wink, "I could order up some Rizzo's for ya, yeah? Best pizza this side of Chicago."

Lady reacted to his comment rather annoyed, "Is bribing really necessary? You'd make an amazing dad, heaven help your future kids." She shook her head back and forth.

"Hey, you go for what works. I happen to think an incentive is necessary. It's not like she is my daughter." He said, "I know for sure kids love two things, pizza and ice-cream."

He then thought to himself as he realized he himself also loved both things . . . Ahehe, that-. . . that doesn't mean anything, that's not a sign.

Lady heaved a tired sigh, "Whatever."

The child's lips slowly moved and formed an odd smile, at least it was some kind of an expression.

"Oh look, she's happy . . . kinda." Dante mused. Lady put a hand on her hip and wondered how she'd got suckered into this mess.

Scientists were crowding her every word and the ability to interact with someone so clearly . . . different than normal humans, well, that was clearly a challenge.  
Was there even a science to this? It seemed pretty ridiculous to suggest there was, this was a little girl, not an object, no matter how much the 'doc' suggested otherwise.

"Eh, you don't suppose she just doesn't speak english a whole bunch, do ya?" Dante continued.

Arthur chuckled slightly, "That, my friend, is determined not to be the case. It's just absurdly quiet."

"Well, that's nice and all, but what do we do here?" Dante asked the man.

"Interact. Perhaps touch the subject's cheek."

"With all due- Eh, just, how did you even get her name?"

The man grumbled to himself and rubbed his eyes under his glasses, "It was more talkative when it first appeared . . . though I'm sure if you asked it now, it would tell you it's name again."

The man turned to look at the little girl and he knelt down as Lady stepped back, and he saw on her face a small degree isolated fear.  
'Object' . . . And that exactly reminded him why he hated rinky-dink doctor's and their self-righteous reasons. This was a girl.

"Hey there, what was your name again?"

She looked up and her eyes were freezing.

". . . Lily." She replied in that same unnerving rasp as before.

Lady's body felt a shadow of a reaction.  
The devil hunter reached out a hand and moved close to touch the girl's cheek.  
The smile remained plastered on the girl's face, and tears rolled down.

They instantly lowered the temperature around her face and the minute Dante's fingers came within reach, one of the tears landed on his index finger's nail.  
He felt the single coldest sensation he'd ever experienced in his life, colder than Cerberus's undying winter, and colder than the most barren slopes in the mountains.

Dante jerked back clutching his hand, almost cursing. His eyes became bloodshot, and looking down at the ground, he saw two big frozen spots expand to the size of a human eye.

"God damn it!" He said, his eyes wide.

"What happened?" Lady was already at his side, her hands seeking to examine his, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine, it's just . . . damn it, it's so cold." Dante remarked, still feeling a horrible sensation throughout his hand and crawling up his arm.

But then, it stopped altogether, and he couldn't figure out why.

"Interesting." Arthur said under his breath.

He noted that Lady was practically hanging off Dante's arm, she was so close and insistent to care for him.  
But Dante was a supernatural man, he held no need for this care, so why was she so insistent for him at all?

Lady turned to the little girl and examined the spot in front of her on the ground, "Did this really come out of your eye?" She asked.

The littler girl said nothing, but she continued to smile, almost completely unaware of anything around her now.

"I'm afraid she won't say anything else." Arther answered, "That's why we brought it here, so that we might figure it out. Perhaps around someone as . . . 'special' as Dante, she might exhibit different-"

"Okay, stop with the science-bullshit, she's clearly not changing anything right now." Lady said.

"On the contrary, this is entirely new. No one's managed to make her . . . smile before." Arthur replied.

The phone cut through everything with as loud a ring as possible, shouting over their conversation. The child began another previously unobserved behavior.

The girl grabbed the sides of her head and tucked herself within the blanket she was wrapped, whimpering.  
It was beyond odd to see, and she stayed standing, shaking like a leaf in a blazing storm, making croaks from the back of her throat.  
Lady stood and didn't know what she should do, wondering what was wrong with the girl. Arthur motioned her to help.

"Interact!" He mouthed.

She went to the girl's side slowly.

Dante rough and tumbled his way over to his desk and grabbed the phone off the base to shut the damn thing up, "Devil may cry."

Winds struck the front doors and demanded even his attention. He reacted instinctively, flinching out of position as wind suddenly pounded at the doors viciously.  
It wasn't normal, by any standard he'd grown accustomed to. The noise grew so loud no one could hear anything at all, and Lady grasped her bazooka instantly.

Then the wind's stopped.

A blood chilling scream disturbed the whole block. Nothing like it had ever happened so close to his shop. It was a bizarre feeling of fear mixed with confidence and bolstered unease.

She didn't like it, but Lady chose to approach the doors first.

Dante instantly grabbed his sword and flung it on his back.

Lady was slow in her approach, but she didn't have to even walk much before something truly unnerving occurred. A beastly hand smashed it's way through the shielded window next to it.  
It clawed up the door and removed itself immediately. Suddenly, furthered brutish knocks blasted the door, almost knocking it off it's hinges as Dante grabbed his shotgun and shoved Lady.

When she was out of the way, he pulled the trigger and their was a massive boom.

Arthur watched, his ears ringing as Dante blew a new friend away from the other side of his front door.

Lady heard a growl from the outside, he'd hurt the beast trying to gain entry.

Dante kicked the weakened doors open and saw a lone beast standing there, a demonic being of olden times. It stared at him and opened it's lips to reveal massive teeth.  
It was evil, ram horns grew from it's head and it had the hulking physique of a giant, roughly standing eight feet tall. It's face was humanoid, but only somewhat so.  
The brute's thick hands were like a bear's, massive but with opposable thumbs and black finger nails. It's whole was covered in short black fur and on it's back grew dragon wings.  
While humanoid on top, it's lower physique was hoofed, and it's leg's stood like tree trunks beneath a rocky plating of battle armor made eons before this meeting.

All Lady could hear was her footsteps and the thumping of her heart. This demon was far different from those she'd seen before, bearing an almost entirely foreign appeal.

The sky was filled with black-tinged clouds, and the sun was entirely absent, almost as though it simply never rose.

In the distance, a red light shined, somehow closer than it had been before, and it was the only illumination present.

"Well, you're a big fella, huh? What's up ram-rod, you trying to find a maze?" Dante joked, flipping the shotgun into a holster beneath his coat.

It growled at him almost unintelligibly, but they soon formed into words they all could understand, "I come for the child, Son Of Sparda."

"Yeah, I was wonderin' when dear old Dad would throw another mess at me retro-actively here, it'd been a while." Dante replied, admiring the chrome on Ivory.

"So you want the little girl back there?" Dante continued, motioning behind himself.

"Greeeghr" It growled steadily, breathing out harshly through it's dog-liked nose.

"I'll take that as a yes. Sorry though, can't let that happen. Don't know what she is, but she's not for sale."

"You stand in my way." It pointed a meaty finger at him, vein's bulging down it's arm, and it's voice deeper and more gravelly than even asphalt, "You will feel pain."

"Pain-schmain, you want the girl, you gotta pay the toll, son."

"You have no concept of what she is, boy . . ." It growled, "She has already destroyed you."

"Threat received," Dante said, sheathing his pistol and drawing his sword down, "Action generated."

And he rushed forward to strike the brutish devil, who came forth to meet him as well, and their clash ended almost immediately.

The blade pierced the demon's pectoral and went four inches deep before it stopped, caught by the fact that there wasn't any strength behind it to propel it further.  
Dante was shocked at the failure as the beast smiled, wrapped it's arms around him and lifted him up off the ground in a bearhug. Without any time to process what was happening, crunch.  
He hit the ground broken in almost every conceivable way, both his arms and both his legs, most of his ribs, and even bones he didn't ever realize that he had, all smashed to bits.

His head pounded the concrete as unimaginable pain flooded his nervous system, and he couldn't even feel or control anything below the nape of his neck.

Usually relief would set in by now if something could even injure him, but it wasn't coming. Somehow, he remained this way, crushed and left scream.

Blood poured from everywhere, and he soon blacked out completely. The beast walked on inside to his shop, and soon re-emerged with the child sitting on it's left shoulder.

"You meddled. Foolish decision." It told him before then departed through a rift in space created by the smiling child.

And in all of this, he simply felt cold, frozen to his very core as though everything across his demonic capabilities were held and bound in place by ice . . . the tear.

He heard a voice, a distressed and faded warble calling to him as his vision filled itself with blackness. It began to grow louder and more panicked each time it spoke.

"Dante, say something please!" She touched his face, the only intact part of him, "This doesn't make any sense, you shouldn't be like this!"

He was half a devil, he should heal from these wounds fast, as though nothing happened.  
But he wasn't, he remained shattered, but somehow still alive. Anyone else would be dead.

She knelt down and lifted his head onto her lap, checking for pulse through his neck. There was a heartbeat, but very faint.

"Shit. Shit-shit-shit, fuck!" She pleaded and took out her phone.

"911, what is your emergency?" A man answered her.

"I need help now! My friend is badly hurt . . ." Her voice cracked, "Just send an ambulance, something!"

"Calm down ma'am, please tell me your location." The calm voice replied.  
.....

To Be Continued


	3. Awake

He woke up. He didn't know why he was asleep anymore, he just knew that he had to wake up. And when he was awake, the pungent smell of disinfectant instantly invaded his nostrils.  
The room was silent apart from a heavy sound that kept droning on and on, as though it were an all-consuming grating, humming along this consistent and odd rate. Soon he realized what exactly it was.  
His own throat was clogged with a tube that kept him locked into a machine that fed him food and his nose was plugged with a plastic tube that forced oxygen through his windpipe endlessly.

Opening his eyes, he soon realized the noise was a large machine hooked into a wall that seemed bigger than the room itself.

It was the source of the overpowering sound, and beneath it he could hear a chirping monitor calling to him.

Suddenly, another putrid odor soon overtook the sterile room and nearly choked him out, the circulation of the hospital's vents rolling it to him, the smell of rust and mustard gas mixed together.

He glanced around and took in the faded blue and white color schemed hospital bedroom. How long had he been here? He shut his eyes, his brain fluttering through past memories.

He felt something in his right arm, a freezing piece of equipment comprising plastic and metal components. It was a dried IV line.

Steadily, he tugged on the tube in his throat and pulled slowly, his pale flesh barely coordinating itself to his wishes as his tingling skin felt the sickly outer-lining.  
He kept fiddling about with it, pulling and pulling on it till it came free, and upon it's release an uproar of vomit emerged, aimed down of the side of his bed.

The man sat coughing violently and felt the absence of the tube a startlingly strong indicator that something was very, very wrong. Pulling at the drip, he ripped it from his arm.

Instantly, pain settled in, a sharp spark of burning power overtook his high-strung eyes and he almost fainted. The lack of oxygen from his withered lungs drained his perception.  
Collapsing backward onto the bed, his head hung off the opposite side of the pillow as he felt an odd pressure inside his groin. Looking down, he removed the sheets and his gown.  
Revealing his naked lower body, he saw what stuck out as a grim cylindrical pipe from the head of his member connected to a yellow bag on the machine next to his bed.

A catheter . . . Great.

"Geh!" He moaned, "What-"

. . .

Pain replaced memory, and coherent thoughts feel away to the frayed ends of sanity.

Dante's mind screamed out as the agony drove through his body. Every thought he just had became confused as the stinging licked up his legs like scorching fire.  
The only thoughts he had was 'someone remove the god damn catheter.' Tunnel-vision took over. Involuntarily, he wept from his own suffering.  
Disembodied voices carried all around him, chatting and shouting words he couldn't understand, and the world went monochrome. All he could see were white pencil outlines.  
Then, inevitably, these wheels of confusion turned to ripping hatred towards this chaos within. Fleeting moments of sanity kept him momentarily calm as he began to notice blood.  
All down the side of his wrist and dripping off down to the floor, it was his own, stolen seemingly without a source until he remembered the IV drip he'd torn out.

He roiled in bed as a prison of self-loathing, wishing the world to end rather then this sea of endless jagged currents stabbing at his muscles.

Suddenly, he felt something cold touch his nose and this winter radiated through him, spreading throughout his body and quelling the horrid flames.

Given to a cradle of relief finally, slowly but surely he drifted back to sleep.

. . .

Now he was hear in this place, this turgid empty space, and though it pained him, his eyes fluttered open yet again. His thoughts unraveled in a million different directions.

How many hours had passed since he'd woken up last? Out of the corner of his blurred eye he could see the faint outline of new sheets.  
Someone had cleaned his mess. Who? What had happened to put him here? He couldn't remember that anymore. Who had brought him here?

Out of impulse, his aching hand traveled up to the side of his head and met an odd fellow's mark on his right temple. It was new, still somewhat fresh, but definitely a scar.

Feeling the throbbing old wound, he flinched at the pain.

"Gergh . . ." The man growled as he felt around and noticed the pressure was gone.

Well, at least someone had removed the catheter.

He tried to get up, but his legs were so wobbly, shaking tremendously as he forced them to obey his will. Moving one leg and then the other together, he managed to push himself sideways.  
His feet hung over the bed limp and loose. His head pounded back at him, he knew he shouldn't be trying to do this but he had to, he wouldn't continue to sit confined to this bed.  
Once he took the plunge all bets were off. His bare foot pressed down on the frigid white tiles, instantly his leg locked up, tight pain overcoming the muscles in his legs. The man screamed.  
Engulfed with weakness, he tensed and felt muscles out of shape in his neck pull themselves out of order, almost tearing as he locked up and tried desperately to trigger some form of old power.

The magic wasn't there. He collapsed backwards onto the bed, laying there limply as if objecting altogether against his decision to stand up.

He lay there taking his breath, eyes wired shut, waiting for the pain to wash away.

Staring at the ceiling illuminated with white fluorescent light, realizing that beneath the blood on his wrist was a tight wrap of bandages.  
Perhaps he should wait here for some help from the hospital staff. He still couldn't figure out how he'd got there, and more importantly, how long?  
Why was he weak this way?

A wiry man with brown hair and strange hazel eyes emerged through archway of the door dressed as a nurse. The outfit was green but raggedy, almost torn apart by age.

Dante stared at him, his frosty gaze interrogating him.  
A few minutes passed. Eventually, the man finally broke the silence.

"Forgive me if I startled you," he said, "I only came to change your bandage. Nice time to wake up."

The silver-haired hunter remained silent. Was it summer or winter again? He could no longer tell.

As a matter of fact, he was almost so confused as to be incapable of thought, it was a wonder he remembered who he was.

"I'm Mark by the way. Mark Rollins. I'm your nurse."

Finally snapped out of it, "Dante," he replied quietly.

"Yes, I know who you are. I suppose we all kinda do." Mark replied.

The man took a chair next to the door and used it to sit next to Dante's bed. He let out a sigh, "I'm gonna take some tests, okay?"

"Eh . . . alright," the weak man said.

The nurse took a small flashlight and waved it in front of Dante's eye, pressing his thumb up on the man's upper eyelid to keep it open.  
He did so with the other eye, then felt for a heartbeat using a stethoscope. All normal. His temperature was clammy, but that was to be expected.

"Ugh . . . What happened?" Dante asked the nurse groggily as he was readjusted back into bed.

"You don't remember?"

The man shook his head, so the nurse complied.

"You fractured every bone in your body and had to be airlifted on a stretcher. They called an ambulance but they couldn't move you on account of all the broken bones.  
We got you here as fast as we could, but you had to be sedated, once you were under then we reset everything through surgery and put you in a full-body cast."

"Yeah, I broke everything." The hunter replied, the world shifting around him still as his aching head remained delirious, trailing off, "That's right."

Mark made sure everything was fine, tucking the mercenary back into bed as he placed the sheets back over the man.  
Everything about the man seemed to be completely war torn, as though he'd seen hell and come back to earth wandering.

Not typical nurse behavior.

"It's a miracle you survived at all, though I'm sorry that the world isn't what you left it." The nurse said as he sat back in the chair and relaxed for a small moment.

His mind already twisted, Dante grumbled, turning his heavy head to ask, "Wha? What do you mean?"

Mark placed his head between his hands, seeming to shudder as he ran his fingers through his unclean hair, an arrow of sorrow struck through his heart.

". . . This place . . . Our entire planet . . . It's doomed." He paused for a moment to take his breath, clutching his eyes as tears began to pour, "Nowhere is safe anymore."

Dante was silent for a moment, his mind flashing to the last thing he remembered, the bear-sized demon and it's crushing grasp.

. . .

That child.

The one who bore a smile like a vampire.

Her ratty hair.

"You have no concept of what she is, boy . . ."

His bones crushed.

"You meddled. Foolish decision."

. . .

"Look, buddy, I'm not in the mood for jokes." He said, pained greatly as he pulled himself up off the pillow. It felt like his entire body simply wouldn't relax.

He took a breath and then addressed the man, "I have to go home."

"What?" The orderly responded, "You can't leave, it's murder out there, if you had a home it's long gone by now."

"What the hell are you talking about!? I have to get home."

"Why do you keep saying that? Look, there's no place outside of here you can go to, everything is . . . It's hell." The nurse said, rubbing the back of his neck, "What happened to you?"

Dante's eyes scanned the room but he could find no sight of his former possessions. A man still had to try even if it was futile.

"As far as I remember, there was minotaur lookin-thing," Dante rubbed his pounding forehead, "Picked me up in a bearhug and crushed me into half of me."

The man stared at him wide-eyed. It was simply beyond his recognition to understand.  
He glared away back to the floor and continued to hold his head in his hands.

"I suppose that's not the weirdest thing I've ever heard given what's been happening. The world out there has changed, it's dark and twisted, like a giant machine."

"I know, I was supposed to stop it." Dante grumbled.

Mark turned his head back to him, raising an eyebrow, "What? What could you have done about it?"

"Doesn't matter now, I need to get home." He replied, still exhausted but now at least mostly awake.

Mark cringed to himself at the third repeating of this, and he stood from the chair, taking it back to it's original place by the door.  
He took his gloves and threw them out in the trash. Walking around, he picked up some old magazines one a table at the foot of the bed and gave them to Dante.

"Here, if you get restless you can read these. Even if your home was still in one piece, you need about two-to-three year's worth of physical therapy before you even walk out of this place."

Dante looked to his right and saw on this side of the bed a built in cabinet on the ground.  
It was essentially a desk for him as he flopped the magazines over on the furnishing and laid there.

The room fell silent as the man then left him to his own devices.

Time passed, and soon his healing became more evident.

By comparison to when he'd first woken so many months ago now, he was looking great.

God knew how long he'd spent cooped up in that hospital bed a vegetable, sitting and wasting away ever so slowly, no longer capable of even feeling anything besides the stale air inside.

Now at least he had some color back in his pale body.  
That was probably due to daily therapy, in which he dragged on kicking and screaming.  
The coma lasted ten months, during which every part of his skeletal structure had managed to heal with virtually no complications.

In that time, he didn't know what had happened outside, every single day he was now forced to keep living was spent inside.

The place was abandoned as far as he could tell, filled only with the vacant survivors of what had been occurring outside. Humanity had been driven underground or into safe houses.

That red light had released something upon this world, a blight of squalid demons and putrid devil kings all the more monstrous than the foes fought inside Temen-Ni-Gru.

And apart from that, nobody knew that much of what was happening. The US military, try as they might, were laughably ineffective against this madness.  
Leprosy and other plagues had been brought down upon the lands, cursing and infecting mortals with their ancient bodies and turning creatures of the sea into leviathans.  
News had dried up, all television services had been cut out to static or graphics emphasizing a quick return to normal programming, and what was left was emergency broadcasting.

So far as Dante knew, all that was left was what was here inside this building, an old hospital he soon learned was called St. Regis.

He had to memorize his own name again just ensure he wouldn't go crazy inside this asylum. He saw Mark occasionally, never exchanging words.

Still, the man knew he had to leave this concrete jungle, it's sterile halls devoid of any kind of life, this structure a grungy moon-tipped coffin.

There stood before him a cabinet in the reception hall, filled with old belongings.

The man reached inside and found a clear plastic box within which were salvaged clothes he used to wear.

His coat wasn't there. Shame, he rather liked that one. He had to leave this place, it was a hollow asylum, nothing but an old reflection of the dim world outside, it's windows boarded.  
He hadn't seen the outside in so long, cabin fever was fast becoming a common room mate. He knew there was something wrong with him, his eyes no longer saw the same way.  
Everything felt incorrect, he would cut and bleed, and he would not ever heal. Pushed across the line by the deadly nicotine air the man knew it was time to leave the hollowed bastion behind.

Dreadfully he limped along the dead corridors, the chemical stench he'd originally woken to as prevalent as ever.  
So much of the time was spent treating those who were sick, but Dante was lucky. Those who weren't were buried in the armored courtyard or burnt using the furnace.  
Those poor souls, his chest always tightened with grief when he thought on their fates. And he felt them his fault, you know.

Somehow, someway, it was related to that little girl. He could still remember her frigid tears, the color of her inhuman eyes, and the way she seemed so evil. Then again, they were all lost children now.

Dante had to find a way out of this fortress, the enclave of human remains that desperately smothered him.  
No one in here wanted to leave, and there were many people. Still, he had to at least try.

Stripped of power, stripped of weapons, stripped of dignity, all the hunter had left were his diminished capabilities and his tired senses.

He wondered why his powers had become frozen . . . the frozen tear. Of course, he was so stupid for not realizing it till now. The girl's tear.

It made sense, it was the reason he'd become so fragile. Somehow, a tear had frozen him from the inside, suppressed into him his father's every demonic instinct till he was as human as his mother.  
His theory was proven correctly by a cut he received on his hand as he was pushing an old metal case, the ends of which had frayed from years of constant physical abuse being shoved around.  
It refused to heal whatsoever, normally a mark like that would take just a second to vanish, instead here he was now with a bandage stuck perennially around his right hand. His run of luck was shit.

Nevertheless, onward he pushed, dressing himself in his black biker boots with functional brown cargos and a black tee shirt.

He need to find armor of some kind, perhaps there'd be some riot gear somewhere, if the police station wasn't destroyed.

He missed his coat right about now but this still beat a hospital gown. He was surprised that they were in good condition, almost like someone had left these fatigues for him.  
Though it served an apt hideout for him, it was time to leave, and in a way, he would miss the strange choking comfort of this old dungeon, it's solid walls protecting those he failed inside.  
All the hospital's doors had been blocked, kept rung shut with everything but the kitchen sink; wood, couches, steel tables, etc.

"Where are you going?" A person dressed like a security guard tried to stop him.

The man looked down to the ground below and hung his head there in shame.  
Slowly, he cleared his throat and made up his mind completely.

"Open a way for me . . . I'm leaving here."

The man pulled a pistol, "No, you're not."

Dante gritted his teeth, scoffing at the man's intention of violence, "You don't get it. There's no food left, you're all going to starve in there."

"You don't know that! We have to survive, and this place is secure." The man replied.

Dante turned towards the man and stood in opposition of him.  
Frozen his heart, frozen his soul, frozen his love, no man would rob him of his redemption.  
A dying devil such as he was beholden only to those who could serve truth.

"Out of my way." He growled.

"Don't make me kill you. This isn't war, it isn't extinction, this is survival." The man replied.

"This is death. You got a problem with a guy like me trying to save you all then you should turn that gun on yourself." Dante replied, stone cold.

The guard, enraged, decided enough was enough. He cocked the gun, stepping forward to be just one foot away from the recovered hunter. The barrel was aimed at his forehead.  
In that second, the devil-killer lurched forward and bashed his left arm into the man's wrist mid-adjustment, knocking the weapon's line of fire out beyond his ear.  
He threw as hard a punch as possible, decking the man with his right hand and managing to floor him just as the gun discharged past Dante's left ear. Though unharmed, his head rung.  
Staggering back a fair few feet, the son of Sparda felt like someone had pierced his ear with a giant needle, the sharp stinging within his ear drum rattling away at his sanity.  
As the man landed, the weapon left his hand and scattered just four feet away from his hand, so Dante took the opportunity and grabbed the weapon for himself, ear still pounding.

The man staggered to climb to his feet, intent on preventing anyone from ever leaving.

Both men were dazed but stepped up to the plate, the guard going for a wild and unfocused haymaker.  
The silver-haired man managed to dodge this, snaking downward and directing his elbow around it.

With his right side facing the man and his left arm facing away, Dante curled around and flexed his left shoulder, bringing the point of his elbow up into the man's eyebrow.

The strike left Dante with a sore joint but did the trick, and the man stumbled over himself grasping his now-bleeding forehead.  
Stepping forward, the hunter stomped on the man's left foot with his right leg and shoved with all his body weight into the guard.

Toppling over quickly, his foot remained trapped under Dante's boot, his ankle twisted, contorted, then simply shattered the bone through to the man's shin.

Screaming, the man cried from his injuries, grasping at his knee as it was the farthest he could reach.  
Dante's stare remained cold and he simply tucked the pistol into the lone holster he had left.

"Thank you." He said and strolled past him to the front door.

Clearing through the barrier, he heard other men come rushing to investigate the noise, and they found them both, one lying on the floor writhing in pain, the other with his weapon at the door.

"What the hell-. . ." Mark yelled, he'd come to search too.

"I told you I'd get out of here. We can't stay." The devil hunter said to him.

"Don't go out there! I'm begging you, there's nothing but death and destruction-" His words were interrupted, "-All of which . . . is my fault. I have to go clean up my mess." Dante replied.

Dante put his handle to the doorknob and began to twist.  
On Mark left, a voice spoke to him reason.

"Let him go."

"What!? But he-"

"Look," The man cut him off, "If he wants to go kill himself out there in the madness, that's his choice. Let him go and close the barrier before anything makes its way in here."

Mark had a depressed look on his face.  
This was a man he'd taken care of without even being asked.  
And now, now that he was awake, the nurse could only sit and watch him go plodding off into madness.  
There was no left to play soldier now, that was it.

Dante opened the door to see pure crimson. The skies were blood red and the streets were soaked in gore. Out here, he was the only living being, the only sign of warm flesh and blood.

The old stone walls that surrounded him through the avenues were doubtless homes to many, yet now it was an unfamiliar maze.  
The light fell on the words that spoke to nobody, unaware that their audience had vanished, or that the streets lay silent beneath no boots at all, save his own.

It was as if God had stopped time, removed all the distractions so he could truly see the city, see how it really was, what it really was.  
And in that moment all he wished for was another beating heart in this deserted city, another being of warm blood and flesh, one more pair of boots to walk next to his.  
Behind him, the doors shut tight, and refused to open once more. Now he was trapped out here in this lonely cold shell of a city.

The air was turgid and destroyed, lacking any feeling of motion. Beside him, lodged deep within a building one block over, was a ginormous plane wreck.  
It must have crashed into the building when the event had happened before, whatever it was that had caused the world to go to hell.  
Or . . . Perhaps hell had come to earth. Clouds in the sky were dark grey, and with them they brought blood rains, the stench of death falling heavily.  
Hope left his eyes. So, this was how the world had moved on.

"The human race lost." He whispered, still in denial of the city's state, such a hellish sight.

Mounds of piled up human remains littered the sidewalk, and infernal machines through which the souls of the dead screamed pumped nightmares all around.  
An industrial hell, one of many terrifying minds' eye. Who was the orchestrator of this sacrilegious extinction? Those still alive worked within massive factory-like constructs.

He heard them, warped and changed from their humanity, driven to become something else through twisted surgery and metal men's whips.

Turning his mind away from that, he thought instead of the task ahead, walking down the concrete steps of the giant structure to explore this new and dramatically changed world . . .  
He needed to get back to his shop, if he could simply recall it's exact location. Assuredly it was somewhere within a twenty block radius, lest his sense of iron mislead him.  
Fractious misdeeds compounded his certain nagging fears, recalling all that he'd neglected to do before 'the incident,' and the toll it had taken upon him was great, even now.  
Loneliness remained to haunt him, the uncertainty of the next the building's shadow reflecting unending gloom and trite misery to which he was no stranger.  
Even now, as he neared the next corner, forced to keep moving in this desolated municipality, he could hear rattling, growling, all sorts of horrible things faintly in the backdrop.

What had been destroyed was rebuilt into something wholly terrifying.

He had one weapon on him, and that alone wasn't anywhere close to the firepower he would need. His strength was mortal. Mortal was as good as dead in the new world order.

Nevertheless, he got lucky, taking backroads and staying off the streets.  
So much time had passed since he'd first been crushed by that beast.  
After so much time running, he finally came to where he'd been searching.

His office still stood somehow, kept alive by some mere sense of cosmic irony, a monument to mock him and his so-called legendary devil-hunting.

How was it still here? Who preserved it? Why had the devils in charge not brought down upon it their fiery brimstone?

Sneaking into the parking lot was a particularly arduous task given that the calm visage held no promise of home. It was damaged, the neon sign, letter's missing and power not supplied.

He did not discern the presence of another within, of course he knew that was no longer a reliable possibility.  
So, arriving within the parking lot, while disarmingly easy, was still a precursor to entering the actual building.

The instant he reached the second third of the lot's perimeter, a gaggle of winged creatures emerged, demons sworn to take all humans in and mold their flesh to be as twisted as theirs.  
He struck a stance and waited for the worst. This was, in all probability, the absolute end of his tenure as protector. Surrounded by hungry creatures of the night, the hunter didn't know what to do.  
Bluffing would be useless against these mindless dull creatures. He needed the raw power to back up what he was selling and that just wasn't affordable currently.  
He clenched every muscle fiber in his body and prepared for what would likely be the end of him, and so the end of Sparda's legacy. Not that he even cared, even now.

A voice yelled, commanding him to get down. His body responded dutifully and hit the ground as quickly and efficiently as possible.

A blitzkrieg of bullets erupted from nowhere to scour the villains accosting this poor man, tearing apart the decaying beasts with reckless abandon until nothing but mincemeat remained.

He waited till he was sure none were left, and when it was time, he stood to his feet on the concrete to meet his savior.

From the depths of this angry hollow emerged Lady's face, her ragged and weary features suspended between grief and joy.

"Who the hell do you think you are parading around town-" The woman's voice croaked mid-sentence as she saw the face before her. It was him, "D-Dante?"

Her usual sturdiness belied this leaking emotion, her face hurt by a long year.  
Tears rolled down her cheeks, a sight she never imagined he would see in this lifetime, ever.

"Lady," He said with a smile, "You're still quite ferocious with those things."

The woman drew nearer. Her hands folded around his back, drawing him close. He could feel her body quiver.

"It's you, it's really you." She said, her words muddled by his shirt.

She seemed so saddened it was almost as if he'd died.  
The only thing he could think to do was put a hand on her back.

He soothed her, "Hey-hey, relax. As much as I'm enjoying seeing you again too, maybe we should go inside before another wrecking crew shows up." He said.

To his surprise, she didn't snap at him, "You're right . . . No, no- you're right, we should head inside."

It was almost like she was simply absent-minded, this despite her young age and sharp reflexes.  
As they made their way inside the shop, it became apparent to him that she was simply mesmerized by his return.

"The doctors told me there was no hope for you. If you ever did recover, you'd be paralyzed. You would never be the same." Lady continued, recalling that horrible day.

. . .

She couldn't hear the ambulance coming, only make out its blurred shape through her crying bloodshot eyes. Lady stared as she watched the life drain out of Dante's face.

His whole skin tone uniformly grew so pale she could see his every vein. As a pair of strong hands pulled her back into the blinding light of the ambulance couldn't move.  
Next thing she saw was his body on a stretcher being administered painkiller suppressants and airlifted by helicopter. She herself was checked out by an responder, who flashed in her eye a light.  
Standard procedures numbed her, she sat there, practically dehumanized.

She shook herself out on, her feet beating against the hard pavement with every step. Her body was illuminated by the blue lights of his office sign. She was alone.

. . .

"I kept a count for the day you would wake up. You've been gone for three and half years now." Lady told him.

The passage of time hit him like a brick wall: Three and a half years. It was making sense the more he thought of it, his sense of time was restoring itself.  
Two years he spent recovering unconscious, roughly around one and half more in his own daily physical therapy with Mark's aid. Three and a half years.  
Those words ran through his mind like some kind of sick joke. He knew he had stayed there for a while but never imagined this long. Three and a half years.

"I, I-uh, I kept your weapons clean and safe. I knew someone would need them at some point. Days turned into months and then months became years."

An awkward silence fell on the two.

". . . I've been- It's been that long?" Dante repeated, to himself, his eyes unchanging and focused on a single point at the wall.

"As far anyone knew, you were dead." She replied, "If that little girl hadn't-" She choked mid-sentence.

Bitter anger filled her chest and infected her heart, it'd been a long time she'd had to focus on that day, examine it's most intricate details and think on the subtlest of changes made.  
Opportunity's had been robbed from her as they had been for all others, both across the free world and the united monarchs of foreign nations, now scrambling for unity to survive this hell.  
The whole world was a giant industrial factory, filled with steel machinery and roving slaves made inhuman by their devil lord's and their own sins coming back to haunt them.

Through this ragged earth came together these lost souls again, now having found one another within the man's office that the woman had made her own private home.

"Hey," he said cooly, pulling her close to him. She looked at him with those big mismatched eyes, wondering what he'd say.

She could feel his hot breath on her lips.

"I'm still here. I'm still alive. And ya know whoever did this is gonna pay, we'll set things right. I'm not gonna give up on account of some demonic invasion." Dante said.

And like that, everything felt better.

To Be Continued.


	4. ~ Scour ~

* * *

The darkroom was like a place out of time, a place to rest without consequence. The darkness, in that way, was a sanctuary, a place to recharge that which had been lost. Forgetting the things the world said was a task for the mighty, but it had to be done. It wasn't that Dante couldn't or wouldn't, but rather that he needed that sense of stepping outside the insanity of his life. It was a cool and calm environment, one that he couldn't deny his charisma. So, in the darkness that stole even his own form, he was content to let the night pass and awake when daylight came streaming in with its bold confidence, revealing the restored incarnation of himself.

Even though he knew the sun would never come.

Still, he gave for just this night, and tomorrow he would start to work.

* * *

. . .

* * *

In the six hours he had been in bed, he must have woken up six times. Not for that long each time, but enough to break his sleep into tiring slow-dives. With every disturbance, there was a new nightmare, another memory, and another sense of his chest nearly being crushed. He cheated death so many times. Mortality caught up to him now. It came seemingly from nowhere.

Naively, of course, he'd trusted a little girl. His once-tremendous powers were now lost to him.

The city, and almost everywhere else across the globe was crawling, practically teeming, with despicable demons of a variety and level he'd not yet seen before.

And he could not even so much as kill one of them anymore. He _is_ to blame.

The number of corpses he saw in the streets had been drilled into his mind, one innocent mug after another. He sat up, sleep seemingly impossible for him. Right next to him, Lady slept. He could see clearly the presence of dried tears on her cheeks. She must have cried herself to sleep, silently. Typical of her. He couldn't imagine what her life must have been in these last three years.

He struggled to think of what to do next.

"I wish you were here." He whispered a silent prayer to his mother, the one person he knew whose judgment was infallible.

Dante heaved a heavy sigh and got out of bed. He left the bedroom altogether and trekked downstairs to his office, his mind racing as though wired on amphetamines, like it was stuck broken on the fast forward setting, the volume jammed up to loud right alongside it. He went to wash his brain in cold water, chill the mind and freeze its discontent of the reality he found himself in, but it refused to do so. He went to the boarded window and peeked through the narrow gaps.

It was still bizarre how human he felt, how every breath taken, every step made seemed to be different. Dante felt like a bird clipped of its wings, and he despised himself.

This sense of helplessness wasn't his style.

* * *

**"You meddled. Foolish decision."**

* * *

He still couldn't erase what that demon spoke to him that day. What a joke, the infamous son of Sparda was undone by a child.

He clenched his fists, silently enraged.

"Dante?" He heard Lady call out to him, "Are you okay?"

He turned to face her with his usual smirk, "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just- You know, ain't no rest for the wicked."

She rubbed the crust out of her eyes and came closer to him by the window, "What's up? Can't stop thinking about tomorrow?"

He grumbled and scratched the back of his head, replying, "More or less."

"Gotcha." She folded her arms, "Tell me."

A familiar smile graced his lips, it was good to be back at least, "I remember they found her at the marina, so I'm just thinking about, uh- . . . How it's gonna work."

"'How it's gonna work?'"

"Yeah."

"Uh-huh . . ." She nodded, "Care to elaborate on that, or?" She said, trailing off.

"I think I just mean I'm still trying to figure it out. I don't know who the kid was."

There was a twinkle in Lady's eyes for she recalled something from long ago.

"I tried to figure out who she was." She said, catching his attention, "Over the years, there's been, uh . . ."

But she trailed off.

Dante glanced back at her and simply waited for her to blurt it out.

"I can't remember, much. It's just there was an old story from my neighbor I heard a long time ago now. Mrs. K. I wonder what happened to her . . ." She briefly was lost in her thoughts, till his glare snapped her out of it, and she continued, "Uh, it went like this: _'Darkness swallows the sky, and earth will be consumed with the dead, then the dark prince will come.' _I think we can firmly establish that as a prophecy with the sky and all, but the rest of it . . . I don't see any zombies walking around, ya know? And this 'Dark Prince,' I don't even know who that is."

He winced and wondered to himself. What kind of demon was that girl?

"Dark Prince . . . I don't reckon the Doc knows anything about that, right?"

Lady's expression darkened, "The professor and his crew died shortly after your accident."

Dante grimaced and then deflated, running a hand through his hair as he tried to piece something together. He marched to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of booze, then made way for the couch. He sat listless, searching for answers inside the palace of his mind, scanning books of memories written many years prior, visualizing a library out of his mind from which he could pull anything he desired in the world. He chugged the beverage, the substance burning the back of his throat as it went down, but he was used to pain much greater than this. He zoned off into space, the wall in front of him his only focal point as facts fluttered across his mind, hazy recollections of a different time and place, and any other information he could glean from half-remembered details and old books.

Lady grasped onto his shoulders and shook him.

"Dante, this is no time to get drunk." She commented, "You're human now, you need to be careful."

He took a moment to breathe before he gazed back at her, assuring her that it was fine for the moment.

"Get ready." He started speaking, "The sooner we get out there, the better."

For he couldn't wait to reclaim that which had been stolen from him.

* * *

.

.

.

* * *

The duo emerged, heavily-armed. Dante wore his traditional ensemble, guns strapped, broadsword slung on his back, though the blade felt heavier than it used to. He still brought it with him. The silence was paranoia-poison to their primate ears. In a world overrun, the slightest sound was a potential beginning of doom. The stillness was eerie and unnatural, like dawn devoid of birdsong. Lack of higher-plane brain functions: right, that'll take time to get used to.

Less than an hour was the journey's planned length, but enforced routes intended for human travel elongated the total time it took between then and now by a margin of four. They were stuck treading through dark allies, service elevators, old military outposts, and bridges. Occasionally, they had to walk in the open, but to do so in their state was suicidal. Nevertheless, it had to be done. By the way of the cities old rusted-out docks, they finally came forth to the empty apartment complex that existed for the workers' choice, left to shiver from the damp chill that pervaded the poorly lit hallway. Lady had dressed in her olden white cloths, a thick black shirt beneath the jacket and body armor to accompany this. She couldn't quite move so fast thanks to her weapon Kalina Ann and those combat boots. Fanny packs to hold extra magazines added further to this dilemma. If not fast, then at least strong.

Inside this old and ragged place hid another survivor, a man driven nearly to madness by the last three years, and a man witness to the dark child that spawned forth this chaos.

Lady knocked on the steel door retrofitted to the unit, "Hey, open up! It's Lady."

There was a long, long moment of silence before they heard a response.

"You. Yes." Slowly the door opened revealing a sickly man with sallow skin and an underweight frame. His eyes brightened slightly when he saw Dante alongside her.

"You found another one?" The man mused.

Dante felt awkward. He had no line back at him.

Lady quickly answered, "Yeah."

"I don't know whether to be glad or sorry for you." The man said, addressing Dante.

"It takes more than a little bearhug to take me down." He said plainly.

The man stared at him with those giant, sunken eyes, and merely nodded, acknowledging him. And the two then entered. The apartment had been furnished long ago, the objects inside worn down as though hundreds of years had passed them by. The man didn't bother cleaning up a place for them to sit. Seems he'd given up on cleanliness in the past year or so, and potentially had also given up on other things, such as eating. There seemed to be no rations at all.

The man grasped a cigar from an old cigar box he kept on a coffee table. It was the only object that seemed to be kept up in this bunker.

Limping over to his seat, the man lit the cigar and rested himself slowly into his rocking chair situated opposite from them. The creeks from the old wooden thing slowly filled the room.

There was a chord of tension between them, and Lady was unsure what to ask next.

So, Dante broke the silence instead, "You saw the child when she came here. What do you remember?"

The man's face shifted to pain, then to horror, and finally to resignation within the span of an entire minute. He was silent at first and Dante didn't prod him, knowing that he would answer them in time. Lady appeared stern but in agreement with him, sitting upright next to him on the man's old leather couch. The moment he'd mentioned the girl was the moment the man knew why they'd come.

"Yes, I saw her . . . and what she is capable of."

* * *

. . .

* * *

Their throats had been slashed and their bodies arranged to lay like butchered animals in a wasteland of blood . . . One corpse had slipped from the single bed bunk to the right of the door and laid staring up at him, the mouth was frozen open, the head almost cleft from the body. He saw again the severed vessels, sticking out like corrugated pipes through the now-clotted blood. The second was propped as ungainly as a rag doll up against the far wall. His head had drooped forward and over his chest, and from his eyes came a great mat of blood that spread like a bib.

"John . . . Eric . . . Wake up, please!" He whispered. It was so quiet.

The girl stood at the door with no expression, just looking at her handy work.

He tried to backtrack, making each movement as slowly as possible so that he wouldn't provoke her.

The girl's empty eyes fell upon him and she stared at him for what seemed like an eternity.

Barely breathing, he begged silently for her mercy. An invisible entity punched his chest, and just like that, he was thrown twenty feet from where she stood.

He laid still, paralyzed, every inch of his body hurting.

* * *

. . .

* * *

Dante watched the tortured soul squirm, hands twitching, grasped onto the shoulders, his face filling with hardship as he continued to talk, "That _thing_ is not a child . . ."

"What is it?" Dante asked him.

The man looked at him in the eye for the first time that morning, "It's a demon. Just like you."

Taken aback, the devil hunter sat back, unsure how the man knew of him.

Without warning, icy hands lunged at his throat as the sickly man jumped at the confused visitor. Dante struggled to break free.

"It's _you! _You are a pestilence in this world, I could smell you from the moment you walked in," The man screamed in his eyes, "_You_ sent us all to hell! _You _are the reason we _are all in pain!_ You're the one who started this, it's _your_ fault! You have the same eyes as her!" The man cried.

Dante began to choke as Lady had jumped immediately and was trying desperately to tear the deranged fool away.

Dante clenched his fists. He seized the sickly man's wrists and pulled them away from him, his blue iris replaced with an eerie viridescence.

"Get off, get _off of me!_" He yelled angrily.

He shoved his boot into the man's left thigh and, one grunt later, he'd finally let go.

Crumbling to the ground, his face hit the floor despite Lady's efforts, and she propped him up on his side. He hissed at her and she stepped back away from him. There was no doubt in Dante's mind that he was honest with him. That outburst was like a death rattle, the truest sense of what he knew somehow. The man laid there, his eyes filling with red as numerous blood vessels broke. He stared behind Dante's eyes, sweating profusely, lips quivering.

"You will suffer through this." He murmured, "You won't be free of God's wrath . . . In the blood of this new world order, your name will be remembered in infamy."

Dante stared at him in silence.

"The new lord will not spare your life when he will deliver us from this unyielding-" A biker boot smashed against his face mid-sentence. He fell unconscious.

Lady stood, unnerved and frustrated.

"That's enough out of you." She muttered. She looked at Dante, who seemed to be emotionless, "You good?"

He looked at her, his concentration broken, "Yeah, just another stranger trying to strangle me, I'll be just fine."

"Let's go, I'm sorry this guy turned out to be a dud." She told him, and the two proceeded to leave the premises.

They left the man as he was, on his own, a blood-stained face laying limp across the apartment floor. Once the front door of the place closed behind him, Dante stopped for a moment. In that story he'd told them, the power she used was . . . telekinesis. She had demonstrated the ability to do things of her own mentality, but where had he seen that before? Something within the story sounded familiar.

"What's on your mind?" Lady asked him, turning back when she saw he wasn't walking with her.

"It's like . . ." He paused for a moment, "I dunno. He reminded me of something, I just- I can't seem to place it."

"Like what? Have you seen anything like that before, what he described?" She asked again, wondering if this visit helped them at all.

He tried to remember, but he couldn't come up with anything no matter how hard he tried. It was as if the memory itself was locked away, lodged deep in his subconscious. Had he seen it before? A part of him felt the answer was yes, another wasn't sure. It was at once both familiar and completely foreign. It was an oddity that stuck in his head, all things considered.

"Let's just go."

They continued to walk out from the complex and onto the nearby pier to which it was attached. A fishery factor lay before them, and beyond it, a concrete tarmac that stretched flatly out to sea, where the red light had shined into existence that demonic child. It was a massive dock built in preparation for freighters and Naval carriers. Soldiers once marched through here, and their children waited to see them. Not anymore. Now all that was left was the flat concrete, still smooth. The rusted sea that stretched out beyond them was a deep scarlet, and further beneath the surface, the waters were purely black. Physically, water was naturally a better conduit for the color blue, as such without a blue sky, the depths were rendered purely stygian.

Lady ran to an object on the concrete, a half-eaten piece of technology. It was the remains of an old rusted out camera. No film inside of it. She checked.

"I assume this is the place, where they found her." She commented. Her eyes focused on the calm, deadened sea, looking out into the distance.

Did the girl come from the ocean . . . No.

They kept walking around the wide platform, looking around for anything, a sign of origin, a portal to hell, anything that could help them put the puzzle together.

But, so far, there was nothing. Another bust? Lady didn't seem to think so, she searched dutifully and voraciously without end. No place went untouched, she scoured the area.

But alas, no luck.

Dante knelt down and ran his fingers across the ground. No dust. He felt it rather odd in a place so large, left uninhabited for three years.

In the midst of their search, the last thing they wanted found them. A loud screech ripped through the night air, and right above them came a darkened beast, a thin creature that flapped wings of Satan's design across the harbor, and landed before them. It looked pale, and throughout its corrupted flesh were large iron spokes driven in. Its head was a cattle's skull plastered upon a skeletal machine-like face. On the jawline, the teeth were dried and visible, and its chin was elongated and pointed. The cattle-horns were black and rigged, matching the charred look of the wings.

Mercy was not something it understood.

Striding the ground like a lion, its chest hung back, spine curved unnaturally, and the fingers seven-inch blades, it sang a raspy hymn of an archaic tongue and glared at the duo.

Dante almost smiled out of habit till he realized he no longer was the man he used to be. Nervous tension ranted through his gut, and he raised his pistols, steadying the sights.

A cool night breeze ruffled his hair as Lady did the same, and he studied his predator, noting, with no small satisfaction, that he hadn't felt this paralyzed in quite some time.

It shifted its head to the side, then to the other, like a reptile tying to gauge sound dynamics. It surged forward abruptly swinging momentum around into the clawed hand it struck first with. Lady rolled to the side as the hunter doubled back and strafed right, unloading bullets instantly. Lady aimed with her submachine gun, shooting a hail of bullets into its chest. The flesh-ripping triggered little reaction. Turning towards the son of Sparda, it spun like a dreidel, chaotic on its axis, and swirling giant knives at him.

Sheathing one gun, he drew Rebellion and parried the strikes with ease. At least that still worked.

He batted away claws but found himself unable to keep up as well as he used to. It was too fast for him to create any worthwhile openings. If he acted upon them, it could easily launch killing blows of it's own. To think, at one time, he could've taken on hordes of these things by himself. Then, atop the strikes came an overhead strike. He had no time to step to the side as he did his best to lift his heavy blade. Just barely, he managed to hit back in time, and the metal sliced through its flesh, severing the hand.

Backlash came when it struck him across the face with the bloody stump.

Dante fell on the ground, and he felt the pain ring in his body for a moment.

He bit his lips as the demon vomited a green substance all over his clothes.

"Gah!" He shouted and fired off both pistols simultaneously, the sound of his guns comparable to a thunderstorm, and he quipped, "Happy trails."

The demon wriggled back, lead pumped into its malnourished chest. A knife struck the soft flesh at the back of its skull. Courtesy of Lady.

It toppled to the ground, a pool of dark blood forming beneath it. It twitched and sputtered incoherency. There was an unholy growl, a blackened roar to the sky that disturbed the silent space.

"That's not good," Lady commented, worried, her eyes darting around, trying to catch anything that might be there.

Dante got to his feet and started running forward without waiting for her, "Time to go!"

No time to argue back. Under the wintry air and the black-red sky that had birthed abyssal clouds for three years now, the harbour was as grey as an old newspaper. Left behind much like an old memory, they darted off into the night and looked desperately for any place to hide, the screams of the unwanted still raging behind them. It wouldn't be long now. Whatever he had left inside of him, he could feel the lost children approaching. Far now, but close enough for the hairs on the back of his neck to stand.

* * *

. . .

* * *

The maiden's sultry feet stepped over a shattered glass and left behind a trail of bloodied footsteps. She did not care.

Her scarlet hair was flowing in the wind, a vibrant allure in the darkness. She sold sanctuary as an illusion, sin pouring from her luscious lips. It was as though those red clouds so far above had come down off mountain-high to commiserate with the lowly existence of the ground. Her beautiful smile was that of dreams, a beauty too perfect for human eyes. She bore blue eyes and a physique that women would kill for. In all ways, she was beyond humanity's ideal female specimen.

Her red nails trailed the brick wall of the old building, and she left behind a pleasant, inviting aroma, like that of roses, jasmine, and vanilla

"So, you're still alive, my baby boy." She remarked with sex on her tongue,

"I've been waiting for you. I need you again. Only you know what I want . . ."

A creature crawled out of nothingness behind her, forming from shadows, a demonic entity that almost resembled a wolf.

"Milady, he has visited the human-harbor, as you had surmised." It informed her.

Her smile grew, "Perfect. He won't be far . . ." She said and patted his head, "You go ahead and relax. It's my time now."

The wolf bowed its head and, just as quickly as it had appeared, it then vanished through a white haze. The woman looked up at the corroding sky, excited. It wasn't everyday she got to see him again. With a mere lustful look in her eyes, she created a path for herself through the destroyed vehicles and fallen houses.

"You know we shouldn't have done this." She moaned.

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	5. ~ Absolute Evil ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Devil may cry 5 soundtrack Urizen battle from the prologue goes nice with the fight scene here.

* * *

The day couldn't be any worse. One moment, immortal danger bared its breath down their backs, the next, it seemed a human threat was becoming the new challenge. Typical, the world goes to hell in a hand-basket and Dante would be the scapegoat. He came by it honestly. On their way rushing back from the harbor, Dante thought he heard gunfire. It must've been four shots at first before he registered what they truly were, and so he darted towards the wall.

"Wait!" Lady said after him. She'd heard it as well. She paused in the alley that would eventually lead them to a restaurant she knew well, head cocked to one side.

It sounded like a specific millimeter, a 45. caliber and an automatic, certainly, but it was too far away for her to be absolutely sure. Still, her spirits lifted somewhat as the thought that the two of them might not be fighting alone occurred to her, that there was _someone_ just trying their damnedest to clean up these hell-plagued streets. It had to be someone, at least one person left still who hadn't given up, or a brave soul that hadn't been captured yet.

"Let's try to stick together, how 'bout that?" Lady scorned him.

Dante felt soulless, even in the dank and shadowy quiet of the back alley, and they heard it, the pinning screech of a male-interrupted and then it followed with a female scream and then a young child's, half-hidden by shadow perhaps four meters away. Damaged they were, torn so badly by the world they now inhabited, and they approached as a unit, together slowly. A fowl stench accompanied them.

"What the-" Lady whispered, confused by the sight.

Dante watched as a group of 'people' groaned and slunked on toward them from the shadows. They wore ragged and dirty clothes. But something was wrong with them, so terribly wrong.

God had surely punished them, the ghoulish faces that they wore turning the hairs on Lady's neck up on end. They were a perversion of life. The eye's were yellow and glowed hostile disease at them, black veins spread through their corrupted flesh, and the shape of their skulls were warped and crooked, a unique shape for one in all. A family of unknowns turned monsters. They croaked and staggered on through the blackness that consumed them all, the shadows of the wall an unsafe hiding spot.

He held Lady's hand and started to backtrack. Whoever they were had long ago been destroyed.

"Dante, what do we do?" Lady asked under bated breath, unnerved. The 'people' were basically blocking the path.

"I- I don't know." He said.

"Dante . . . They're going to attack us if they get close, the hell are we going to do!?" She whispered, adrenaline spiking.

The man let go of her hand and stepped forward. This was ridiculous. The ghouls straggled out of the shadows and caught sight of him. The patriarch of the unit howled to the sky a call of madness, one not unlike that of the devilish bark they'd heard earlier. Dante hadn't ever encountered a fiend such as this, the insidious nature of this transformation one that rendered innocent humanity as cannon fodder to his oath. There was but one thing he could do now, and it broke every moral fiber within him.

With the drawing of his guns, he shot five times. Every shell tore through rotted flesh like tissue paper, and the grisly strangers fell down dead.

Silence filled the turgid air. Lady stood shocked.

"You killed them." She whispered, cold.

"Yes." He replied.

"Were they human once?"

"Once. But only once."

She covered her mouth to keep herself from saying any more. She knew it was in no way the time nor the place. And now, the shots and the howl were dead-sure indicators that other ghouls like them had heard. A loud swarm became to pick up, miles away. The lost children coming to avenge their fallen brethren. Dante knew they couldn't be out here in the streets, a bunker was their only safe haven.

He dashed forward, Lady not far behind as they both charged on down the road, sticking to the shadows for what little it was worth.

The duo made way for any place that wasn't right then and there. This would not be the easiest of tasks.

There was a smell of gasoline spreading through the air as Dante pumped his arms for more speed, and a sense of dizziness suddenly overcame him, an ugly taste at the back of his throat.

There was an empty path right ahead of them, almost there.

Lady quickened her pace, pulling him along with her as he began to lag behind.

She rounded the corner and immediately collided with a man, knocking her down.

Dante held unto her arm before she hit the ground, pulling her up to him.

"Oh Jesus!" He shouted.

It was another ghoul, a bear of a former-man. Once human but six-foot-eight in height, it was even more extreme in feature than the family they'd previously seen. It led with an open hand outstretched towards the Lady, and Dante struggled to pull her up as he grabbed Rebellion off his back and struck high. He aimed downward, digging the blade into its shoulder, but the inhuman growled and grabbed the metal from him, launching the other fist it had at his chest. The air left his lungs as faltered backwards.

Forcing the weapon out of its torso, it threw it off to the side and marched forward. Hands held at his throat, it beckoned toward him with tremendous meathooks that barely resembled a human.

He wouldn't let this thing touch him, and he placed the barrel under its chin, then pulled the trigger.

An explosion of brain matter burst from the top of its hairless skull. The ghoul dropped dead.

He quickly seized his blade while Lady fired off shells at a pair of malformed twins that approached them from behind, flailing their arms and crying havoc. Dante saw three more hounding forward after them, unable to move like a normal human-being. He sliced his blade forward vertically and cut through two of their heads, slamming forward his boot into the third ghoul. He knocked it off its feet, then bashed the pronged handle of Rebellion into the side of its head. It didn't go down easy, falling over with little more than a few cuts on the side of its skull. He was only a man now, he'd forgotten.

More were on the way, and with limited time, he simply grabbed his companion and ran.

They rushed off through the corridors they called streets, and soon, more beasts of burden were clawing at their coattails. She held onto Dante's arm like there was nothing else stronger.

Nearby, finally, there was a door and glass wall of an old diner, through which they could find their way out to the other side.

The 'people' came for them in droves, and Lady fired off her machine-gun. Leaping for the door after Dante, her bullets eviscerated their shoulders, others reached their legs. It only slowed them down.

The two felt as much as they heard an explosion, a tremendous surge of kinetic energy that shook the block to its core. Dante felt a displacement of fiery air that shoved him in the direction he'd ran. Everything moved around him far too fast to separate, to understand chronologically. Until he slammed to the ground. He groaned in pain, lifting his head up off the floor. Once he opened his eyes, there was an orange color in front of him. The building they'd run through was now on fire.

Lady was next to him, bruised all over, her clothes singed by minor contact with flames.

"Lady!" He called out to her, worry struck him like a freight train.

There was no answer from her.

His breath halted as he pulled himself to a sitting position. His eyes observed the area. The ghouls were still trying to climb at them through the fire, as though they couldn't feel anything.

"Shit!" He placed his hands on her back and carried her over his shoulders. He pushed himself onward past this misery. There was a doorway through which he bolted, and a tunnel greeted him.

The smell of salt returned for they were forced back to the ocean.

"You're fine! You're gonna be okay . . . !" He whispered to Lady.

* * *

**. . .**

* * *

The abandoned tunnel was like a tremendous grey snake, curving under the masses of iron and brick that were built high above. A mile up from them was an exit into the old market place in Chinatown, he could remember his way around there if things hadn't changed too much in the last few years. Suddenly, the tunnel curled away coldly into an infinite dark, the light that had shone through the rough walls dwindling as it snaked away. His skin shuddered and he could feel his brain starting to defocus.

"Wait?" He wondered, "What's going on?"

Perhaps he needs a rest, the place seemed to be silent and empty, good enough for him to take some time out.

He didn't know how far away those freaks were, but he couldn't even feel them anymore. Perhaps they'd gone away . . .

Gently he laid Lady down, propping her against the wall when she started to awake at last.

Lady moaned and placed a hand over her forehead, "Ah, what happened?"

Dante sat down next to her, "That's a good question. There was an explosion, but I don't know where it came from." He said, but he stopped for a moment to take his breath.

"I don't think it's safe here."

His body was hurting all over, it was troublesome how tired he was at the moment. Dante tried to move forward towards Lady, they needed to figure out the next phase. But he just collapsed where he was, his body refusing to obey. We have to go . . . he thought in exhaustion. But he couldn't. He couldn't move. Couldn't think. To his shame, he just let himself close his eyes and gave himself over to unconsciousness.

* * *

. . .

* * *

**The flame has no culture, no pity, no mind, yet it consumes whatever it pleases.**

**Its only criteria is if it can take and reduce to ash that which we hold dear or something molten and foul.**

**The flames burn hot, short and violent, with no care what will be left behind.**

**"Vergil!" Dante screamed, through the smoke and haze, coughing, "Mom!"**

**There was no sign of any of them, the sounds of screeching demons growing louder as they forced their way inside after him.**

**"Dante!" He heard her scream upstairs.**

**"Mom!" He yelled and started to run, the flames beginning to eat his clothes, but it didn't matter.**

**Through their bedroom, he saw Vergil struggling to break free from the hold of a being wrapped in death-black robes, a scythe in its grasp, holding his brother up by the throat.**

**He couldn't see what it looked like beneath the murky cloak.**

**"Let him go!" Dante screamed and charged at her with his bare hands. The demon hissed and he felt the blade slam into him, piercing him, he flinched and fell back in a daze.**

**Through his blurry vision, he could hear Vergil's screams as he fought back and tried to breakthrough.**

**Driven mad by pain, the boy jumped through the window, charging blindly into that night.**

**No! _No!_**

* * *

**. . .**

* * *

"Dante."

He didn't want to open his eyes. To wake meant returning to that awful backwards reality. A world where he was reduced to a defenseless, exhausted man and all others sought to kill him.

That world was a nightmare.

"Dante, oh, you naughty boy." He heard a sultry voice say.

Something was very odd now. He felt as though he were still in a dream, but a pleasant feeling washed over his member. Warmth and something else. Flesh . . .

He opened his eyes and saw the one thing he hadn't ever expected to see again. There she was, straddling his hips, riding him like he were an animal. His tired mind couldn't make heads or tails of the time and place. Was this a memory? No, it felt vivid and concurrent. He felt pleasure . . . pleasure from this vile woman he sought to forget. Her scarlet hair flowed over her creamy skin, sweat dripping off her bust as they laid bare before him. She grabbed his hands and told them what to do. She smiled at him a familiar poison and blew a kiss from those ruby lips of hers.

"You're still good, you're still _soooo_ good! Oh, yes . . . yes." She cawed at him, pecking his cheek.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head, his mind reeling at the bizarre event unfolding. He felt dazed and confused in no uncertain terms. But this felt so good, so addictive. She maintained the best of rhythms and soaked her index finger in his mouth, the taste of her skin sweet and longing. She pulled his head to her bosom and held him gently, drawing the man to his inevitable conclusion.

"Ah! Ah! Ah . . . Oh . . . _aaaaah . . . _Ahahaha, haah," She beckoned him with the final throes of her passion and whispered in his ears, "I missed this."

In the frontal lobe of his brain took place an explosion of endorphins, sweet sexual release accompanying the surge of painkillers through his mind and body, and a bit of the old fire returned in his chest.

But at what cost? He felt a piece of him gone away, a slight ray of the light inside died. Why had she come back to him here? Of all places, in this dungeon . . .

She kissed his cheek and shoved her tongue between his lips, saliva joining his dry mouth, rejuvenating the his roots. The sweet smell of roses and vanilla flooded him and he felt himself arrive within her. The seed released, the darkness in his soul reborn anew, and the soft flesh of his old life returned to torment him, her beauty a thing to behold on this toilet earth. He remembered her name from that time, speaking itself to him now as it had then, Jezebeth. A queen of sin, a lady of evil, and the witch of lies. She giggled as his fingers traced her nipples and found a home on her unholy hips. A face that resembled his own licked his cheek and bit on his ear, he shook and she moaned. Further still he came through the daze to find that he did not understand what was transpiring.

A dream or a memory, he couldn't honestly say.

"Ooh, tell me you love me . . ." She murmured. "Dante . . . Dante . . ."

* * *

**Dante**

* * *

"Dante."

A new voice spoke to him.

He didn't want to open his eyes. To wake meant returning to that awful twisted place. A world where he was reduced to a defenseless, exhausted man and all others sought to take his life from him.

That world was a nightmare.

"Dante come on!" The feminine voice was soft, yet still concerned for him, "We can't stay here another second."

Something slapped against his face, forcing a return to reality.

"Ah what!" He opened his eyes to Lady looking down at him. She stood, haggard but awake at least. Her injuries were minor, thankfully.

She placed her hands on her hips a bit annoyed, "Did you need a kiss to wake up?"

He pulled himself to his feet, cracking his stiff neck back.  
The man stretched himself and felt as though his wounds had gone.

"That woulda been a nice wake-up call you know." He mused, smiling at her.

Unbelievable how still he smiled and spoke with humor despite how dire the situation had grown. She supposed something like this would work for their benefit in the long haul. The lifting of their spirits was a tedious task that only he could accomplish in such trying times. It was as though the world still had some kind of charm left in it, despite all that the Devil had wrought upon this land.

"Hmmm, that's debatable if you're worthy of that." Lady fired back.

Dante dusted himself off and looked around the dark tunnel, the dim, faded light helping him just barely enough to see minor elements of their surroundings.

They should keep going that way. Lady checked her weapons, she'd lost her machine-gun back in that diner. Oh well. She licked her wounds before pulling Kalina Ann up over her shoulder.

"Let's go."

And the two started walking on once more, but a nagging detail began to scratch at the back of Dante's head. That dream . . . it didn't feel like a dream. They should've been devoured in their sleep by then with the amount of time that had likely passed, but this was not so. Dante felt no aches or pain through him, almost as though he'd recovered instantaneously from his injuries during unconsciousness. But that seemed unlikely to him, he should've logically been wounded still, lest his years long recovery was actually a fever dream that all occurred in one night. He knew this was wrong.

Whatever it was, he was at least grateful for the mysterious healing's timing. Still the lack of ghouls was unsettling.

The stillness of the air seemed to suck even the sound of their footsteps into the nothingness of the tunnel.

Only the pounding of his heartbeat was audible. Even the sound of foreign little creatures scampering about eluded their ears.

Dante could describe it as unsettling, but now wasn't the time to admit fear. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.

The tunnel was too perfect . . . perfectly safe. A nervous rumble sprung up in his stomach.

She felt so real . . . was she? He hoped never. It had to have been a dream, a paranoid delusion. The tunnel would see them through to the end of their current journey, the tunnel was safe at the very least, if an absolutely ill-fated direction. He focused himself on this, forcing himself to work towards the exit without trepidation. Being human robbed him of his bravado, sad to say. They were growing nearer to the end, but still a nagging feeling of insecurity wouldn't let go. The dim light turned out to be a light on the wall, barely illuminating the corridor with an orange bulb. Below it was a double-door that lead them somewhere. Would that place be good? He had no way of saying, he trusted Lady's judgement. Almost.

"What do ya say if we stayed here for a second, just to think about what's on the other side of that door?" The man asked her.

"What? What are you talkin' about? We have to keep moving. It's much safer over there than over here!" Lady told him.

Dante thought about their options for a moment. Indeed, they would likely benefit from leaving this area. They just couldn't keep on running from place to place without a solid route.

However . . .

"Okay. What if there's another unlit door back there-"

Demonic screeches began to echo through the tunnel after them. They couldn't tell where they were, but the sounds of anything inhuman right now was immediately souring.

"Right. Time to go." The hunter said, shrill.

The duo ran forward through the doorway.

Stepping into the old factory building was like stepping into a whole other world. They'd ventured onto a set of old train tracks and that following them as far as they could see, though the train tunnel had long been in disrepair, it seemed. No one could pass through, ignoring the grass peeking up between the slats and rusted, broken metal. The building seemed to shudder in the wind and sway.

Dante saw an iron spike lying on the ground, a dusty relic that laid right by rusted machinery. He grabbed the thing and shoved it through the metal handles behind them.

That ought to stop anybody. He turned back and they saw the factory with greater detail.

The work of spiders' graced every wall and every corner, vast cobwebs covering the entire building like snow. The old fan hung loosely from the ceiling, swaying ever so lightly. There was a draft coming in through a busted window, but the entire place was silent. For the time being, it seemed this place, as decrepit and dingy and it seemed, was their best chance at survival. Next to the new delicate silk strands of a living arachnid was a mummified corpse, a scream etched into its face. Each cobweb was a new home within an old one.

Dante took off his red coat, he was starting to sweat. Nerves were rickety.

The building was empty, but for a few pieces of rusted factory equipment, they seemed perfectly at home within the building's vine-covered walls. Just as it had been outside, the inside was a horror show, recalling a similar ambiance as that of old folktales told by grandparents to their grandchildren, the corrugated walls as rusted and useless as the equipment they housed. Beams stretched high overhead.

Lady stepped further into the building, looking around as she left dirty footprints on the floor.

Her hands were inches away from her guns, ready to attack at anything that would render itself apparent.

Even the subtlest of creaks was unwanted. There was an office upstairs. Lady quietly and slowly ascended the steps, pistols drawn and at the ready.

"Over here." She said and he followed her up, slowing each foot to a crawl. She came came to the wood door and pushed it open with a creak.

Inside were couches and a desk, it was a simple setup. They could stay here for a time.

Dante walked in and dusted off the large couch. Some cleaning was necessary. He laid down and closed his eyes for a moment, not really thinking about anything.

Lady placed down Kalina Ann on the wall, her back having become sore from carrying it around for so long. They locked the door shut.

"So what's our next move?" She asked.

"I have absolutely no idea." He replied with a chuckle, "The world's gone to shit, you're asking the guy who spent the better part three years in a coma what to do."

Come to think of it, he remembered that last day. Dark prince? Could it be the person he was searching for? Dominus. He was still trying to work out what that meant. It seemed that whatever had happened, clearly he was a target. The whole world was nothing but a target. Perhaps he himself really _was_ connected to this insanity, another bastion of hell trying to prove something . . . one of his father's leftovers. He couldn't figure out what was going on, the chaos was simply far greater than even he could fathom.

What a joke!

"I think I might know a little something . . ."

Lady laid on the other couch and exhaled, "You do?"

Dante took a sitting position and crossed his legs up, "There's a name I heard a while ago. It might be connected to this whole thing."

"Yeah? And what would that be?" She asked him, bemused at this new information.

"A single word was all it was: Dominus. I can't make heads or tails of it, I've never heard it before."

"That demon that day, the one who came for the little girl at your shop." Lady replied.

"I don't think that was it. That was a servant, I don't think a demon like that woulda been behind all this."

There was a moment of silence as Lady pondered on the subject.

* * *

**The shadows shifted north**

* * *

"You seem to be enjoying my gift quite well." A disembodied voice echoed through the factory.

His blood ran cold. It couldn't be. That voice . . . the dream . . . no, it was no dream. She was real, she was here. He rushed off the couch to his feet, slipping on his red coat as he grabbed the Rebellion off from the wall he set it against, and he burst through the office door. He seemed to move faster than before, as though a bit of the old fire still burned within him. His breath quickened, his humorless face scanning the room as carefully as possible. That wretched woman had visited him in his slumber.

Lady walked out after him and couldn't exactly locate where the voice had come from. She saw the urgency in him and knew it couldn't be good.

"Dante wh-"

"Oh, how I've missed you so." The woman spoke again. Within the shadows, a fully nude woman appeared, her scarlet hair hanging down to those sultry legs.

"Too cool for clothing? Let's waste her and get outta here." Lady commented, taking aim.

She saw Dante walk calmly past her and come to stand in front of her, blocking her view of the woman.

"Dante, what're you doing?" Her question fell on deaf ears. It was as though she ceased to exist altogether.

The woman cross her arms and raised up her cleavage.

"I know you've missed these," She moaned, "You enjoyed them earlier just the way you used to."

Dante's flushed themselves red instantly, a seductive smirk grew on her face, and a lone tear streamed down his cheek.

"You . . . You deserve to die." He growled at her, "How many years have you spent in hell thinking about what you did to me? To all of us?"

Lady was mystified. What had happened earlier? Who was she? Why did Dante seem to know of her already? She had no answers and so many questions.

"Every seconds worth, big red." She said, reeling back at the words themselves, the cadence of her own voice a pleasure to her ears, "Oh . . . the old nicknames do still make me wet."

"Man or devil, I don't care. I'm going to rip your throat out." He muttered, and he sprung forward without warning, sword drawn, eyes bloodshot, and teeth bared.

The devil hunter growled inhumanly, slashing at her neck, but she dove beneath the blade. He circled the strike around, whirling the brand with furthered attempted strikes, but they all missed. She simply was too fast for him. Striking down with a furious helm-breaker, the metal collided with the flesh of her palm but dug no further. She held it aloft, and forced the weapon upwards from her. She held it in place against his grip, her blood flowing down the blade's edge, and she licked her lips. As he struggled to force the blade down, she reached out with her other hand and curled her finger under his chin.

The anger within him grew and he bit down on her hand, forcing his canines in.

"Oh, foreplay, I like it." She mocked him. A spectral flare shot out from her hands, and he was hurled off his feet. His back hit the wall and he fell forward, Rebellion thrown from his grasp. He panted heavily as she strode forward. Lady opened fire, pumping bullet after bullet through the woman, but it did nothing. She wondered just what kind of demon she was to be able to shrug off consecrated rounds. She waved her hand aside and Lady the was thrown by an invisible force off into the office. The door shut itself and locked tight. Dante could hear her yell as she banged on the door, trying in vain to escape its confines. She came for him, grasping him by the throat and throwing him up against the wall he'd just collided with. As though he was a mere doll, she held him in place off his feet.

"You always needed more than the others. I just couldn't seem to satisfy you as quickly." She told him, "Ah, your mother would approve of the man you've become."

She grinned at him, then threw him off to the right. He sailed off over the edge of the railing and landed on his back some fifteen feet down. A cloud of dust poured out from beneath him and then settled again. The air automatically exited his lungs as his lower back compressed in on itself. He coughed aloud, the taste of iron filling his mouth. Her feet lightly touched down nearby, his struggling eyes witnessing her red toenails striding towards his face. She came to stand right by him and smacked his face with the ball of her foot.

He inhaled briefly before her foot then crushed into his chest.

"You still like my feet?" She asked him, leaning over to look him in the eye.

He grasped her ankle with both hands and tried as hard as he could to lift the limb off his compressing chest. It seemed to no avail as she laughed at his attempt, and continued to crush his ribs in. A rage overcame him, and abruptly, he drew back and struck her leg at the ankle joint. That smile was disrupted. He hauled his fist again. He heard a snap, and she took a step back off of him. Her face was left aggravated as she stepped back on the broken appendage and faltered in pain. The wound was only temporary.

He sat up and drew Ebony and Ivory, opening fire. Bullets ripped through her and she moaned, staggering back as her form was mutilated by his gunfire.

"Die!" He yelled at her, "Die, die, die, _die!" _He bellowed, enraged.

No matter how many shells he unloaded, she would not fall. She kept laughing at him, seeming to savor each dose of agony that he dealt her.

Finally, the flesh was stripped away, and she wasn't recognizable as human. She stared him down and began to walk towards him silently. He backed himself away firing a gunshot off whenever he could, but to no avail. Her form regenerated itself from nothing, all aspects of her beauty restoring with a dark infusion of lust, and she strode closer till he could back away no more, his back against an old metal machine. She rested upon him, sitting on his lap. She smiled as he scowled, and she kissed his forehead with a giggle.

"Oh, silly boy, there's nothing you could do that would drive me away." She said, forcing his head into her chest. He struggled and pushed her away, but to no avail.

She continued to laugh at his struggles.

The door to the office swung open with a crash, Lady's boot the instigator. She darted out and saw Dante struggling against the woman, yelling obscenities in vain as she forced herself upon him.

Fire engulfed her eyes.

"Okay! That's it!" Lady shouted and aimed Kalina Ann. "Hey! Stripperella!"

The woman ceased her laughter, staring up at the voice with a smile still plastered on her face. Though lady intended to fire, she stopped herself. Dante was still right there.

The scarlet-haired witch wagged a finger at her, and then, the woman's hand emerged right beside Lady, grasping the barrel of the weapon shoving it off to the broken window by the side. Lady looked and saw the woman standing there now, right beside her. The angle was awkward and the shove instantaneous, her fingers slipped and the projectile was launched.

"Oh shit!" Dante said as he put up his arms.

The missile collided with the border that separated the window panes, and the explosion scattered heated glass in various directions, yellow flames bursting out into the sky.

"Mmm-hmhm . . . I like you." The woman told her. And she wrenched the weapon from Lady's grasp, then hurled it back in the same motion, ramming the but of the bazooka into the woman's gut. Lady coughed and her back hit the wall as she fell forward, grasping at her abdomen with closed eyes. The sweet smell of the evil woman invaded her nostrils as Jezebeth approached, grasping the woman by the back of her hair and hoisting her up off the ground. "I think he likes you too. What's good for my Dante is good for me as well."

She moved her hand into Lady's blouse and brushed past the undergarment. She fondled the human woman's chest and brought her closer, pressing her crimson lips to Lady's own.

She felt powerless in her grasp. The ground shook beneath her slightly and smoke started to gather and engulfed the place.

When they parted, the witch smiled at her and kissed again at the beginning of her cleavage.

"Stop it!" Lady groaned, "Stop!"

"Mmm, why would I stop when I know you enjoy this?" She replied.

Lady bit her lower lip. True to her word, the woman didn't stop.

A gunshot rang out through the place. The woman and her sweet lips rocked off to the side, blood staining Lady's agonized face and chest. Jezebeth relinquished Lady's hair from her grasp and staggered off to the side. She twitched her head to the side slowly and another gunshot pounded away at the dead-center of her forehead. She staggered back, the burning bullets crushed against her skull. Lady fell against the wall, clutching her arms and shaking.

Dante stood, the end of Ivory smoking, his face and arms dotted by small cuts from the ricocheted shards of glass.

The woman lowered her head back down to him, a psychopathic grin etched in.

"More." She said.

He fired again.

"More." She repeated.

He fired three times in a row.

"More!" She wailed.

He put two in her brain.

"Ooooh . . . _yes_." She whimpered.

The man reached Rebellion. He seized the weapon once more, and he thrust it forward in a stinger. Propelled by pure rage, he drove the blade through the woman's heart and out the other side. She convulsed and shuttered, her body pulsating over and over. He reverse-gripped the handle and added the force of his other hand once more. He drove the blade further in, as far as he possibly could, his body responding to desperation and adrenaline as he knelt down and forced the weapon through till the hilt's screaming face touched her flesh.

She quivered uncontrollably, her fingers running through his hair as she felt sweet release. She touched his chest and smiled.

"You always knew what I liked." She said, snickering in his face.

She stroked the side of his tortured face with that soft right hand.

"What's the matter?" She asked, the airy look in her eyes troubled by his menacing grimace. "You're angry at me, aren't you?"

She tilted her head.

The woman clapped her hands together. A light shown within her palms blinded him, and her spear came, born of nothing. It passed through his shoulder, tearing apart his astral self. He howled, lurching back and grasping the invisible wound. She raised herself off the ground with no movement, simply levitating of her own accord, and the sword remained lodged within the ground beneath her. Risen to her feet once more, the woman's wounds all closed themselves, and she gazed upon him lecherously.

It happened so quickly. The woman swept her hands over the ground and it seems to Dante the earth itself was trembling.

He immediately pulled himself up before she could reach him. With his own two hands he grasped the sides of her head and slammed his forehead into the succubus's face. It felt like smacking concrete. Only lightly dazed, he maintained his grasp and brought his knee cap up to her nose. There was a blunt crack and he let her go with a sidekick to the pelvis. She once more seemed to flounder, but that moment was short-lived just like all the others. She laughed, her voice like a song.

"You haven't learned a thing. You can't beat me anymore."

Lady ground her teeth and stood behind her. Drawing both her guns, she fired what each clip had left. A hail of light engulfed her vision and the bullets vaporized. The woman turned on her and smacked the bounty hunter across the face, but the blow felt like a boxer's left hook. Lady spun around, rocked by the force. The witch continued toward her, sniggering at the woman's pain.

Dante clasped his arms around her waist. "I've had enough of you!"

He lifted the woman by sheer force of will, forcing her off the ground and he thrust backwards. Her head slammed into the ground as she toppled over backwards with him. She rolled around beside him as he turned over and raised himself up. He bashed his boot across her face and she felt over on her back. Standing tall, he railed on her with dozens of kicks, striking her as harshly as he could. When next came his leg toward her face, she placed her forearm out in a defense, impacting his shin. He stepped back, for a moment, believing his bone to be snapped. His leg held together somehow, though it ached terribly. She launched into his mid both her feet, and the man spat blood as he was pushed back into the railing, growling.

Crawling to her feet animalistic, she remained hunched and prowled like a jaguar. She pounced forward and attached herself to his hips, wrapping her legs around his sides, and then she squeezed.

Instantly, air was forced out of him, all at once. She applied pressure with her legs, and compressed his sides. He couldn't breathe, his face straining, eyes filling with red as he thrashed around inside her embrace, unable to break free. She moaned in his ear as his face became flushed, veins popping out of the side, himself grunting as he tried to force her off. The woman's perennial leer stared him straight in the face, mere inches away from his nose.

Out of nowhere, she felt something hot burn her skin. She let him go, screaming to the sky. Lady stood behind her holding a bottle of glowing water in her hand.

Holy water. Clever girl.

The woman squirmed on the ground, amorous laughter finally replaced by horrendous screams. Dante collapsed back against the railing, coughing hard from the back of his throat and breathing harshly.

The woman growled, "I'm losing too much of myself," chanted something under her breath and a red-black haze overcame her body. The woman's shapely form vanished into the thin air.

Lady remained tense, but after a moment, she relaxed her shoulders. She walked to the wall and shivered, placing a hand to her forehead. She herself was left breathless.

"Okay . . . okay . . . Dante? Would you care to explain to me what just happened?" Lady said, exhausted but alive.

Dante slid to the ground from the railing, forced onto hands and knees from the energy exerted. He remained silent, closing his eyes as his silver locks clouded his eyes. Hollowness and anger remained. He struck the ground with a powerful shout and then coughed more. He shamed himself internally for letting her go yet again. Once was already enough.

"Damn it." He grumbled.

Lady slowly slid down the wall till she sat on the ground herself, looking up at the grunge-ridden rafters. Still, he wouldn't even look her in the eyes.

"I'm going after her." He said.

Her eyes flared, and she stared down at him, mouth agape, "_Are you crazy?_ We just got annihilated by her! Both of us are injured, we need to hide."

Dante slammed his fist to the ground again, and he grasped the railing for support.

"You don't understand. I already let her go once before." He griped, taking his breath.

"What are you talking about? How do you know her? Explain to me why it matters!" Lady yelled at him, confused and angered. "She was no god-damned stranger! She talked like she already knew you."

"For what she did, I'm willing to risk _everything . . ._ to take down that pedophile." He replied to her, glowering at her the most hostile look she'd ever received. "If you don't have the stomach or the strength for that, then I don't need your help."

She stared at him silently. This woman they fought had hurt him more deeply than anything else they'd ever encountered before.

Seeing her once again had awakened buried memories. Once he was outside in the cold, he couldn't quite focus anymore. She'd come now that hell had followed him to earth.

Was she the mastermind responsible?

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	6. ~ The Heart Beneath ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will, I hope there are people who still here and read this.

Time was lost to him, he could no longer tell if it was morning or afternoon or midnight.

The weather was atrociously temperamental, shifting back and forth from bone-chilling to muggy warmth. He hadn't realize he'd walked a mile . . . and no troubles begot him. No twisted human thralls, no fissions of reality spilling monstrous hunting beasts, only the lingering fear that something may be hiding within the shadows.

Lady touched his shoulder.

"Stop running away from your own partner," she said.

"I'm always running. But, I think you just gave me a plan." He replied.

"You don't say?"

They kept moving through alleyways and backstreets, moving past dim lights slowly. The sky was bright red. No signs of changing anytime soon.

"Remember when I came back from that island?"

"You mean that time you took like a week-long sabbatical? Yeah, I remember." She replied.

He paused for a moment, ". . . I brought a weapon back with me, something I found there. It might help me out with my current 'predicament.'"

She remembered all right, he'd come back with a strange-looking blade and a blonde woman who'd begun to live with him, but he hadn't used it since. Two years ago, when he returned from an exceptionally prioritized job . . . the peak of his revenge. She wished to join him there but he had refused her, telling her it was simply too dangerous. He sought not to put her in harm's way. From that place, he'd brought a powerful blade that seemed to use the power of lightning itself, harnessing and creating it from nothing, to the point its ambient energy would shock her if she dared come too close.

"Ya think that might give ya a leg to stand on?"

"No," he chuckled, "I'm just gonna have to be careful."

"'Be careful,'" she repeated, "You're going to touch an electrically charged diode in the form of a god damn sword."

"Yeah, it'll be fun."

She glowered and furrowed her eyebrows together.

It was at this moment that they heard a noise. A piece of metal clanged against another, and it rattled out through the alley all around them. Them came the expansion.

The sounds were numerous and close by, spouting off a routine pattern of five syncopated bangs. Dante put his hand in front of her, the two stopping instantly.

Hands readied themselves to draw steels. Tension in the air rose with every passing second. They'd wandered into the middle of an abandoned market-place. So many places creatures can hide in. Lady turned around, and the two stood back to back, covering as many blindspots they could. Dante heard the demons' screaming howl and his hand was twitching inches away from his sword, his other hand gripped tightly onto his pistol. They had to get away before they could be cornered.

To the side was a building that operated once as a supermarket.

The metal sounds stopped.

Then, the building cracked open as though it were made of wood, wreckage from the store spewing out in a burst of smokey debris.

A large piece of blackened rock from the building's outer wall smashed into the hunter's left side. Air instantly left his lungs and he felt a rib give way as he fell, the pain immediate.

"Dante!" Lady leaned over him.

Her gaze darting back and forth between him and the demon breaking towards them, a sense of hatred overcame her. The missile launcher was still clutched in her hands.

There stood a pale-skinned creature from the ruins of the market building. A tall and decadent figure, it bore the trappings of a human guise but bore little semblance to an actual man. The thing was beyond what they could handle currently. A single eye stuck out at them unblinking and wretched, it sat where a face would traditionally be, and tentacles whipped from its misshapen back.

"Dante!" The demon hissed, "Time to die."

Dante pushed himself up, holding his damaged side, "Sorry bud, but I don't plan on dyin' just yet."

Between all of the chaos that populated his ears, across the general perimeter, Dante could hear something thumping heavily against the ground, followed by the crumble of powdering rock in a slow, even rhythm. It was coming, it had jumped off the roof and it was coming . . . it was coming again.

"Run," The man shouted

She left his side and bolted for cover, managing to take shelter behind an old green dumpster just as the creature crashed down upon the ground. It had lunged across an entire building in one single bound, blood lusting from its horrid teeth and wilting face, joining the rigid master of eyes. He knew that if he couldn't pull through now, it would be the end. It was already the end. When this had all started, he felt that his days had been marked, and so here it came that he would fall.

Finally, Dante stood up on his feet and faced the thing.

He grit his teeth and threw forward his left leg, and something cracked back into place.

A momentary sense of pain melted away to relief. At least he could take solace in that lone positive sensation.

He drew his blade and rolled his shoulders. With a smirk he said, "Heh, so ya want a piece of me too, eh? I kinda like your look," he paused, "you remind me of the last dump I took."

The demon roared, sending hot stinky air toward him.

"Insult me one more time and your death will be painful." The demon hissed.

Dante waved his hand in front of his nose, "Peeuw! I'm kinda confused then. You mean you guys weren't gonna make me suffer before?"

It stopped for a moment thinking. Then it pounced.

A broad jaw like a crocodile's tore at the air by him and raced past, the Cambion rolling off to the side, his pained-eyes focused on timing the window just right. With a single swing of his blade, he swiped right and tore through it's entire side, spilling demonic blood all over him. He held the weapon steady as it tore at the flesh, and when it had wrestled free of the steel, it staggered but maintained its Lion-stance, standing proud, albeit shamed.

Dante kept his eyes trained and adhered to the training he'd received from his mother.

Doing this is no longer fun. Tentacles crashed within inches near him splintering the street high up in the air. The master of eyes had sought to join in, though it could not move quickly. In fact, it stayed in place, it's black humanoid encasing seeming to hold back whatever it may have been capable of. With a turn, he slashed through rubble and saved himself, that was the moment Lady used her launcher. He took note of a salvo blistering towards the creature and so quickly dashed backward, spinning into a horizontal strike against the second monster's slime-crusted legs.

It roared and butt forward its massive wrinkled forehead, slapping about the man off his balance. He pulled the weapon free of its flesh and defended valiantly with a series of strikes against forward claws. Three times it attempted to take a pound of his flesh, and three times did he deny it the pleasure, slicing through the corrupted skin and batting off inorganic nails. From behind him, explosions rung off, taking apart the tails of his coat. The heat bore down his back cruelly.

Lady's submachine gun fire drew the other beast's ire, and Dante struggled away as more tentacles came. Dicing after him like pincers, they came like rabid dogs. He drew Ivory and fired off many shots, but human accuracy was so very limited. One of the tentacles pierced the front of his leg, and he winced with pain. Rebellion's edge came crushing downward and severed the extremity. With hell in his heart, he fired upon its open eye and cosmic blood splattered out from the shifting black form.

Dante ducked down when he felt the other one nearly catch his back. Swifty, he fired the still-drawn Ivory. Its repellant claws came forward evermore, seeking his blood. The hunter ceased fire and brought Rebellion forward, bashing the thick claws away. He fired off more shots, staggering back somewhat, though careful to stand his ground and not grow too close to the other demon that crept behind him. Its domain was a twisted one of darkness.

He felt his bones start to rattle, his muscles began to ache, and his body began to hate him. Still, he held strong.

Lady shot more rockets, the Kalina Ann's reloaded rounds firing out into a targeted spread, tearing through demonic flesh as the hunter flew himself in between, doing his best to avoid the flames.

He pushed himself beyond his means and though that would cost him, it allowed him to survive. He felt the weakness of humanity constantly and it dragged upon his shoulders. Still he moved faster, harder, forcing himself forward past what his body was capable of. Dante slammed on the ground and felt bruises on his head start to burn. He wasn't fast enough. The creatures shrieked behind him.

Both begun to rot away, though still present. So the hunter did what he must, and he stood on his feet, staring on behind him as the beast evaporated and then master of eyes burned in the light.

Blood dripped from his teeth, and he clenched Rebellion's grip tightly.

He rushed forward and leaped upward, as high as he could. And without wings, he fell upon the dark creature with the full might of his father's blade.

Rebellion tore through the eye and destroyed whatever remained, and with that, its encroaching feelers died out. The entity faded and so too did Dante's strength.

He fell upon his knees and breathed heavily.

Minutes went by and his companion joined him.

"Are you okay?" Lady asked beside him, solidarity a hard thing to come by these days.

He spat blood and felt his forehead. A cut had opened just above his eyebrow, a small one.

"Yeah . . . still alive," he said.

At least now, he was handling himself better.

"Not too shabby for a human huh?" He chuckled and coughed.

Lady shook her head and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him from his back.

She hung her head by his ear and said plainly, "I'm impressed that's for sure."

With a sigh, they sat for a few moments patching up his wounds. The two continued on their way, down the street where they saw Dante's favorite diner, the place where he often once ordered that famous Italian delicacy that was so gleefully his trademark. The place was his refuge, a sanctuary of silence. He could pretend that there was still a caring society that would have him readily at their side.

At the tables were his imaginary friends in a transient community. People born to crave social bonds.

He wasn't an expectation, even if he tried to deny it. It was reduced to a dusty ruin, no signs of life anywhere to be seen.

* * *

**There came the spark of memory to him, the bright return of a life they both once lived inside that place that had been stolen from them**

* * *

. . .

"I'll pass." He said, grumbling to himself. The cards laid before him, warning for his defeat.

Lady placed two potato chips in front of him, "I'll raise two and call."

Checking his cards once again a smirk broke across his face.

"Aces high. I win." He showed her the cards and he was not bluffing.

Lady groaned in frustration, the unexpected outcome one that ruined her appetite for dessert.

He took the rest of the bag of chips for his own devices and carried on chuckling.

"How about we have a bet?" She said.

"Hm, I'm confused at what we've been doing so far . . ."

"Yeah, yeah, smartass." She said, crossing her arms.

He grinned gleefully and relented, "alright, I'll bite. What's the take?"

Lady laid back in her chair and smiled, "How about next time . . . the loser takes the other out on a date?"

His eyes widened and he laughed, "Ah-hahaha, you got some sense of humor on you, Lady . . . you're on."

. . .

* * *

**And their minds returned to the present, to the life that now replaced those simpler times so readily**

* * *

The hunter gulped hard and he suppressed the memory the establishment brought back. It had been so long ago then when they'd had that conversation.

Her pulse quickened, that much he could still tell. It was so very odd that she would think to that same moment, yet somehow, of all things, he knew that she had.

It was best that they quickly moved on from this place. The remnants would only bring more longing.

And the longing . . . would only bring about more pain.

* * *

In the cold night, the air carried the sound of chanting. It was almost like the sound of a choir praying to god for salvation:

_The mouth of the Just shall meditate wisdom,_  
_And His tongue shall declare judgment._

The sound got louder, it reached every house and building.

_For once he hath been tested, he shall receive the crown of life._

* * *

The two of them stood in front of his shop, worried about the reason behind such spoken words.

"Well . . . not everyday you hear that." Lady whispered.

"Not everyday do you walk around town getting attacked from all sides by demons and more demons, either." He replied.

". . . that's a lot more common for me than you'd think."

"Right . . . I forget, sorry." He replied, and anger surged back into his stomach. At least now they had reached Devil May Cry's office.

He was the one to unlock the door and go inside first.

He felt the blade call to him. It had long awaited his return.

Lady stood outside waiting for him. She didn't know what to expect.

There within, the weapons cabinet beckoned his approach, and he came towards it thusly. He opened the wooden doors and there it was. Radiating power more active than it had ever been before. Dragon wings made the hilt's guard, spawning from the maw of the old beast itself, the silver blade protruding from the open metal jaws.

Hello again, old friend.

The very moment he touched the handle, heat shocked through him and currents crackled and surged into his veins. It spread through him quickly, overtaking all his sense and charging the heart beneath the flesh that continued to beat. And it drummed on faster and faster, as it had once done as a devil, and there it came to him the power that restored the monster inside. Rendered weak but still present, near-gone, but never forgotten . . . it rose within him yet again, the old power of a world long ago reckoned.

Lightning struck insane zig-zags in every direction possible, spitting across the block like a flood, painting previously unseen paths whiter than the snow.

Lady froze in place, standing with her hands clenched.

The surging had ceased. All that remained were smokey trails rising from the closed door.

"Dante!" She called out.

Out from the doors came the calm footsteps of confidence that she had long forgotten the sound of.

"I'm back, baby." He smiled.

His eyes were clear, clearer than they'd ever been before.

* * *

**To Be Continued**

* * *

**Thank you for reading.**


	7. ~ The Mob Rules ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope someone still clicks reads this.

In the afternoons it was Dante's custom to drink one glass of beer, have a snack, and then get ready for work. The sun was gone, light withered to nothingness, so he just called this moment, 'the afternoon.' He stared at the glass, reflection turning the liquid to crystalline pasture. The power pumped through his veins. The corruption on his soul was always bad, and yet, to be bad . . . never felt so good. He dug out old magazines for himself, flipping the pages as he drunk. Revenge would come as soon as he'd finished this delightful work of hedonism.

Lady paced back and forth, thinking alone.

"Everything alright?" he asked, not bothering to look at her.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good, as good as I can be right now." Lady said as she continued, "What about you?"

"Same." He hadn't stopped ogling.

She came to a stop and stared at his uncaring eyes. He seemed to be almost soulless, just sitting there aloof, staring at the pages of a questionable magazine. She sauntered towards his desk and leaned herself over the desk as much within reason as she could till his eyes wandered.

"Dante?" She said lowly.

"Yes dear?" he said, eyes drifting to her chest.

"I've got a question that's been bothering me for a long time now," she said flatly. "D'you think this is all a set-up? Something about all this doesn't feel right. It feels like someone wanted you out of the picture, very deliberately. Someone somewhere wanted an invasion, and they got it. I don't even know what's been happening or how any of this got started, but I do know someone definitely didn't want you around when this whole invasion started."

Dante lowered his magazine and stared at the wall for a moment. He sighed and flopped the magazine down, shifting his legs off the table as he did, a well-worn look of cynicism drooping off his face.

"Yeah," he said, "I noticed that. The strange dim lights in the sky, the sun vanishing. Some weird, fragile kid appears at the seashore, and then all hell breaks loose. It seems too well-timed to only be a coincidence."

The thought had occurred to him that it was all a trap of epic proportions, one designed to sideline _him_ in particular, and rid the world of its best defense. No army was capable of defending against the kind of evil that swarmed these lands, human weapons generally proved inefficient when it came to demons of the slaughter. All those nightmares . . . it was a premonition of what came to be.

"Dante."

Lady had grabbed his hand. The look in her eyes spoke empathy of a dark strain.

"Who was that woman?" She asked in a calm whisper, "Can you tell me?"

His feeling turned jagged and his insides tight. The mere mention of her was enough to awaken the rage within.

His eyes were blank and unfeeling, staring right through her.

"Dante?" She called again, worried. She came round the desk and rubbed his shoulder. "You still with me, bud?"

He remained quiet. Those icy eyes almost clawed at her as he looked upon her flushed cheeks with reservation.

She grew desperate, "Um, you don't . . . you don't have to talk. If you don't want."

He clenched his right hand and sighed.

"She's my demon." A lone tear slid down his cheek as did a sigh, but his hard stare remained. "We share a bad past, got bad blood flowing between us, her and I. And of all the things I regret, she'd be the one I can't ever take back, not ever. She's the darkest part of myself. I'll never rest till I've killed her soul itself, till the darkness that she is dies out and nothing her remains."

Lady stared at him, sadness in her eyes, "Is there . . . anything I can do?"

"No," he said.

The filth in him was shameful. Those long nights so obscure captured immortal sins in his memory and he still showered alone just trying to forget. His mother's smile extinguished, the fear of what he'd done himself, the deaths that happened, what she felt about him, those days in the end before happiness went away. Her body laid dead and buried, and one boy was lost to the world, the other pleading with the pain to stop. Every way out seemed to lead him back to the start.

"I thought it was somethin' I mastered already," he said. "But . . . it just doesn't sleep. The mere sight of her just takes me right back to that night."

Lady's hand touched his cheek.

"Alright," she said, "I may be an inquisitive bitch sometimes," her voice hushed but still measured, "But that's more than enough talking now. I don't need to know more about that."

He broke up laughing, "hey, you asked."

She laughed with him, "I know, I know. It's alright."

The laughter returned to silence and they stared at one another, smiles still present. Dante had a way about him she always found reassuring, a grace under pressure that was tough as nails and stronger than steel. No matter how bleak life became, he could always find something to smile at . . . even her. Their faces drifted closer together, lips hanging open, tender, and gentle.

He touched her cheek, feeling the warmth of her skin at his finger tips.

"I'll go with you." She'd broken the silence all too soon.

"Uh, yeah," he said with a renewed enthusiasm, removing his hand. "Yeah, we'll stick together, like always."

Lady gulped hard and looked away from him. "Yeah. Cool."

The devil hunter ran his fingers back through his hair, "We got a lotta cleaning to do."

* * *

**. . .**

* * *

With his power supplanted, Dante jumped over the roof of his shop and got himself as ready as could be, straightening his jacket out effortless striding the roof returned to normal. He felt happy again, as vain as that felt to say, the wind flapping on his face coolly and gentle; the man felt the return of his greatness come rapid. He knew without them he was still as good as dead, his survival so far a certain miracle. Lady stood at the entrance of the place, guns ready in her hands.

Dante gazed back at Lady one last time. She raised her thumb in agreement.

Dante took out a vial from his pocket. The vial contained a strange looking green liquid.

"Come to papa," he whispered and threw it in the air.

Swiftly his Ebony, he drew and fired one bullet at the glass container. The glass vaporized on contact and the contents burst into the air all around them. The Liquid changed and shifted into pure power the moment it hit the air. A touch of dark magic. It was a spell cast with fire and fury, and within second, the screeches of demons began to fill their deathly silent surroundings.

"Here we go," Lady whispered and saddled Kalina Ann on her left hip, ready to fire.

A gaggle of creatures crawled towards her something horrid, vaguely humanoid in shape, but hunched on all fours in twisted and mangled fashion, each limb ending with a thumbed-hand, and a much larger arm grew out from the middle of their backs like giant, fluid tree trunks, claws attached to the great hand flowing about. On their twisted faces were masks of a warped face, inhuman in nature.

At the top of her lungs, she shouted, "C'm'ere you little bitches!"

Lady whispered as she stabbed the bayonet of her weapon in the ground and bellowed, "Make it rain!"

A brilliant orange light burst out from the edge of her weapon as multiple shots rocketed toward the approaching fiends, content to tear them to pieces. One by one, each creature fell to the ground screeching in agony, half burnt and mangled, missing limbs and eyes, new orifices carved through their twisted forms bloody and foul. She felt proud till one of them snuck up behind her. She hadn't expected that. A rough hand grasped her and flung her at the side of the building, striking the front doors and rolling on the ground.

The cry of pain reached Dante's ears and he shouted to her.

_"You alright down there?"_

She heard his blade cleave monsters in two, wounding what had already been injured, and his anger seemed to inflect every movement.

No time to recover. Lady pushed herself off the ground. She was more than ready for some normality to return to these crooked streets.

"I'm fine!" Lady replied. "God damn . . ."

Two demons charged forward, staggered from one another twenty some-odd feet. Lady hoisted her bazooka to her hip and hurled the bayonet upward into the approaching creature's melting eye. Lady then drew her pistol at the creature and fired once at a large eye blinking, situated on the creature's back. Blood splattered all over her and the beast fell to dust. There came the next one, ambling and shuffling toward her. Quickly, she holstered the pistol again and flipped the bazooka back for her shoulder. Through the sights she aimed and then pulled the trigger.

A single shell croaked out of the barrel, pushed into place and forced through the air.

It struck directly and tore apart the beast, exploding into bright orange flames. It rang in her ears.

* * *

**. . .**

* * *

She stood, red hair flapping in the wind, long and flowing, beautifully degenerate, those perverse eyes watching a line of demons fall to the great slayer restored. That potion of his was something she never imagined him to be capable of knowing, let alone his apparent skill at the craft, hidden amongst his things and his crafty complex. The fumes rose through the air and compelled evil to wander to them, like moths to toxic flames, and she admired his clever deception. Surely now, creatures of all make would come to them, from how far and what breed, she couldn't exactly say. That was for the higher-ups to discern, not her. A world conquered and humans forced into isolation in resistance or converted slowly into the Devils that hunt them altogether, and it was all to do with that first wave going unstopped, the devil hunter taken out of place from his usual role, and therefore leaving humanity itself defenseless; she smiled to herself at the clever trades of tactics now on display.

"This isn't over, my boy," she whispered. "Your love burns strongly still in this womb. . ."

It grew within her like a snake, swirling around an unholy abomination decades in the making.

She smiled to herself and placed her hands together in front of her, as though praying.

"Oh dear Sparda, watch my rule," she whispered to the dark sky above.

* * *

**. . .**

* * *

The bells pealed viciously through the air, tearing apart silence without care. Chaotic and tolling, it was the signaling of war through these dark times, a war on humanity and all that was this was that.

It was a rapturous warning of what would soon come. Doom in a knife in the back, crashing down upon the city soon enough, grafting together the fires of hell and the forms of evil they all feared.

Eden was dead.

* * *

**. . .**

* * *

Moving toward the altar, he wondered whether this quiet air had held for Berowne also the promise of discovery, of a scene already set for the end: ether tinctured with the scent of old incense, candles burning brightly in the dark and the solidly Anglican smell of musty prayer books, ancient in their spells, metal polished, and flowers of an infernal reagent crowded together on the floor in a pentagram of homemade chalk, made from things of beasts and rodents, incantations set in the old ghoulish tongue of the Visigoths, barbaric but powerful.

The brightly lit passage, with its floor of encaustic tiles and white-painted walls, ran the whole west end of the church. The little vestry was the first room on the left. Next to it, with a connecting door, was a small kitchen about ten feet by eight. Once he'd returned to the halls of madness, he rejoined his twisted brethren, all fallen from the grace of God and now loyal to the desolate one beneath the earth. They continued the ceremony as it was.

"Lo to us, great Dominus, hear our prayers and save thee from this darkness."

The young boy in back wondered if they were even right about this. Begging mercy from a monster who caused their world to be shrouded in darkness? He cannot even remember the last time he felt the light of the sun pour itself across his face. It seemed to be such a distant memory now, growing fainter with the feeling of his humanity. They'd only been led to this conclusion by the love of that woman.

He flesh suppled and feeling, she liked the boy best, or so she told him when they all had their turn with her, the vixen's red hair still stringing through his mind.

"Stop doubting your God," someone spoke to him, fully knowing what he was thinking. "We must abide by the story as it goes. You know it as well as I: once darkness swallows the earth, he will come and cleanse us, protect us from the demons in the darkness of that world, and only through this sacrifice will we be set free. The children of the prophet, as we all are, and we'll shine brightly to remake the Earth as God's angels. It all starts now with his summoning."

The young man nodded and looked down at the ground.

"As Dominus's loyal followers," a woman's voice called out. "You will be rewarded with the glory of his bright leadership, and you know what you must do. It your duty that anyone who stands in the way of his arrival, his emergence in the flesh on Human soil, must be stamped out."

Confusion strung itself through the boy in the back. "Who would dare?" he asked.

The woman appeared to them, an apparition wearing a tan cloak, her face hidden by the flowing, long red hair they all wished to be enveloped within once more.

"God, long ago, was betrayed by his general, a being named Sparda, a monster for whom we've hunted and hunted. It is your duty as the followers of the bright one that you exterminate Sparda's traitorous bloodlines from the Earth. His son, the legendary hunter Dante, will hold you all from reaching salvation, and he holds your happiness hostage in his hands with his every breath."

Jezebeth's voice was like an Angel's, sweet like honey.

Chatter filled with room as they wondered how they might take down the hunter, or if they themselves were floundering on God's wisdom.

"Yes, mistress," the man in front said. "We will crush the traitor with the power you've given unto us."

They all moved as one organized unit, taking weapons passed along to them by her order.

Swords and pitchforks, knives and axes, brimming dark power of a craft that they knew not the origin of. And they moved with passion and lust, men driven to their tasks by the promise of reward, the reward of her flesh. From the streets of the ghost town came a peculiar, blood-chilling sound. Lowly, it was the snarling of many voices, and it grew louder and louder until it became a sullen, muttering roar as the crowd moved together, once again a combined unit, looking for their target.

The young boy ran when no one noticed, to the safety and comfort of an alley nearby.

What they were doing was incorrect, no matter what she said, no matter the strength of the gospels spoken in those once-hallowed walls.

He needed to find this 'Dante' and warn him of the storm coming, of what they had become.

He ran, without looking back, hoping beyond hope that he could reach him before death clawed him beneath the ground.

* * *

**. . .**

* * *

Dante growled in frustration— the number of the devils ranked highly, six-hundred-and-sixty-six. Seemed to be they were growing large numbers he had no way to account for. He was a soldier on a battlefield today, and so the more that came for him, the more he would draw himself on, rage replacing sanity, hatred becoming his fuel. Vengeance on these beasts who turned this world to ruin.

Two charged at him, claws bleeding. Dante threw himself forward, flipping over their sullen attempts and drawing Ebony and Ivory. Blood splashed the pavement, bullets torn through devilish skulls, and he landed upon his feet upright. Forward he charged, cleaving Alastor through a nobody's side, taking off the arm on its back without a hesitation as he swung around and bashed a skull in with the hilt, sending an inhuman body crashing through a wall. Fluid, he drew back his blade and races forward its edge to impale a creature in its side, tearing through its thick hide with ease as electricity ran through him and burst through its flesh. Pulling the blade out, he took aim and swung the flat of the blade as a baseball bat, knocking the creature and its sickly friend together into a crowd of scythes wading towards him.

He slashed around his blade, long arms turning sword strikes into great windmills of his unearthly power, tearing through hordes unfeeling as he felt unworried about injury, unaffected by scratches, and undaunted by emotion for the enemy. Sin demons came again, and its ghostly wails screeched at him, scissors chopping air for his coattails. Bullets tore through their cloaks, and he surged forward aerial raves in scores of damage, leaving behind sonic booms as he went, turning monsters into dust with his pain.

He gorged himself on blood, absorbing from them what power they had, draining creatures dry as he grew stronger and more hateful, little by little, building upon his father's power. From his face came shouts of war and nerves of steel, the devil hunter tough as nails in the face of danger. Ever so often, he heard Lady grunt and shout as she shot up more twisted devils, made easier by his own slices.

Onward he carried himself, as if a fresh trooper heading into battle anew. These scarred beings kept coming.

Then, he heard something new, the pull of metal, the release of chemicals, and the spray of white that came from a turgid extinguisher's snout, blinding however briefly the demons of the fall.

To his surprise, when he looked, he saw it was only a man, one he didn't know, standing there at the front of his shop.

Dante couldn't help himself being amazed.

It didn't stop one of them from attacking him, however.

Another vanguard charged toward him. Wailing as a Sin would, it struck downward with its burning scythe held aloft. Dante through out his leg and kicked its stomach in, the creature's blade then halting and stifling as it stumbled backward, Dante countering the discordant strikes through air nearby with a flick of Alastor's fine blade, and the man slashed forward, cleaving into the side of its head.

Jumping above a leg sweep, he twisted around and struck out with his leg, crashing his boot heel into its withered face.

It crashed down near the human, who reacted with fright and blasted it further with the fire extinguisher.

Dante lunged down after it, the blade held in both is hands downwards, and he stabbed it through the beast's chest as he landed atop the creature in a splash of thunder.

"You okay here, buddy?" He said to the man.

He saw up close that the man was, in fact, no man at all. He was but a boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old. The boy's hair looked inhuman, darkly color crimson, his clothes tattered. He fell backwards on his thighs, breathing heavily, fearful of the power he'd seen.

"Are you . . . Dante?" He asked.

The hunter raised an eyebrow, surprised that the boy knew his name. He was more well-known than he thought, it seemed.

"You . . . are Sparda's son," the boy heaved, his hands trembling as they dropped the extinguisher to the side.

"Yeah?" Dante asked. "I get that a lot. What d'ya want?"

"Long ago, a mother went with her two children, to pick up ingredients for their dinner. It was a cold, unordinary day. However, a fog spread through the forest and it became hard to see. Determinant to help his mother, one of the boys fled from her grasp and vanished within seconds into the bushes. Her cries were unheard. From this day on, the boy was labeled a hero, leaving his sister behind it all."

"Uh . . ." Dante said, unsure what he was to make of that tale. "Whatcha gettin' at, sport?"

"To be that boy, free spirited and tremendous, one must be strong. Are you strong?"

Dante smirked with a confused brow raised, "I just Thor'd the grim reaper, what do you think?"

"Fair enough," the boy said. "I come with a warning."

Dante looked behind him and saw the crowds had not gone away, slowly crawling forward to him.

"Better make it good," the hunter said.

"You need to run," the boy told him. "From my church, a mob is coming for you. We— We lost the way . . . and we let ourselves be blinded by sin and lust for the woman who came to us offering salvation. I couldn't take lying to ourselves anymore. She has sent them after you and they will destroy you, whatever power you may hold. They have more of it."

The man stared at the boy in disbelief. "Okay . . . ya made it good. But, why? What do they want with me?"

"All that you have and more. To them, you are the betrayer of their God. You represent all obstacles, and so Jezebeth said unto them to destroy you," the boy explained.

Dante grew deathly silent.

"I am . . . sorry," the boy said. "You have to leave now. I will do what I can to hold them off here, but you must flee before they can find you."

"Dante!" The hunter heard Lady call out to him.

He looked back at her, serious and stern. "It's alright," he said.

"What is it— oh, hi," she said, noticing the boy's presence. "Who's this?"

"A friend," Dante said. "We've got to go."

"Say what?"

The boy nodded, "for your safety, you must leave."

"Don't tell me what's safe and unsafe," Lady grumbled. "We just got here. We've been tearing apart demons for the past twenty-five minutes, you can trust me that I know we aren't safe. What else could be coming that's so much worse than what we've already got now?"

The boy stared at her gravely, "twisted men more powerful than you know. The priests of my church, who've fallen to darkness. They hold more power than these beasts here."

"Oh yeah?" She said, eyebrow raised. "What about you then?"

"I am the weakest of them, but I am not without my strength. The both of you, you've got to leave right now, before they're here, you can't win like this, with even your strength as it stands now."

"Dante?" She said, turning toward the man, and he was still serious, staring at her with acceptance of the boy's words. "You can't seriously think he's telling the truth."

"I do." And the man slung his sword on his back. "We need to leave. If we stay, we'll die. Even if I could kill any of them, they'll outnumber us. It's simple math. I'm strong, but not that strong yet."

Her face grew cross and she glared at him, almost seeming to want to shoot him right there, and yet . . . she couldn't stay mad at that face. If he was saying the truth, then all she could do was to believe him, and therein, believe the boy as well. They would leave then, leave with their supplies, anything necessary, and anything that wasn't bolted to the floor. The man grabbed whatever devil arms he had left, those he hadn't chosen yet to sell off, and he departed with her by his side in just a minute's time.

Dante gazed upon his place, his humble home for many years. It was taken from him now, in this new nightmare. More fuel for his fire.

Lady grabbed food and ammo, primarily.

Through the backdoor they left and the boy stood his ground soon as torches came in the distance, glowing faintly, faces misled by lust and rage, the succubus's power coursing through their veins. The boy had no clue what he would do, or what he would say to them. Their powers outweighed his own, the boy barely stronger than even the human woman that had just left their presence. Fear spread through his chest and to the rest of his body, locking him in place as a sentinel for justice, a hollow visage masking his panic.

And when they came upon the office, the lone boy standing in opposition to their fury, there came a figure in black, a dark warrior covered in armor, on his back a gilded cape of purple majesty.

An aura of blue power emanated from his large body, and his armor, though entirely foreign to human-kind's crafting, stood proudly and firmly as the banner of an olden knight, demonic might blocking the mob from attacking the boy with a tremendous blade, a gigantic claymore that ruminated blue runes hewn into its surface. Spite formed a flame across the giant blade as the knight took arms against them, and denounced the mob's rule, proclaiming they would not charge any further upon the boy.

**"Halt,"** his corroded voice called to them. **"You will come no further, filth."**

"Who are you?" Commanded the man leading the charge.

It growled and bellowed at them, as loud as thunder, _**"I am the Slayer, and you will not forget this Devil's power."**_

* * *

**To Be Continued.**

**Thank you to whoever is reading. Hope you had fun with this.**

**Vergil has come baby, oh yeah.**


End file.
